"L  I  B  R.  A  R.  Y 

OF   THE 
UN  IVLR.5ITY 
Of    ILLINOIS 

In  memory  of 

Elijah  Jordan 

1875-1953 

"omne  immensum  peragravit 

mente  animoque" 

vTTe£ 

cop. '2 


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in  2011  with  funding  from 

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THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 


By 
E.  JORDAN 

Professor  oj  Philosophy  in  Butler  College 


INDIANAPOLIS 

CHARLES  W.  LAUT  AND  COMPANY 

1925 


Copyright.   1925 
E.  JORDAN 


)5~0 

CoP,Z 


7161 


PREFACE 


The  following  pages  represent  an  attempt,  extended 
through  a  number  of  years,  to  say  something  to 
groups  of  undergraduate  students  about  that  prin- 
ciple of  unity  and  order  in  experience  commonly  called 
mind.  Since  the  majority  of  college  students,  who  do 
not  "major"  in  professional  subjects,  but  whose  inter- 
ests, when  they  have  any,  are  governed  by  ideas  of 
general  culture,  are  not  prepared  to  deal  with  the 
highly  technical  details  of  physiology,  it  has  seemed 
to  me  advisable  to  abandon  the  regular  text  in  "psy- 
chology." I  have  believed  that  there  is  something 
real  in  and  about  the  life  of  the  mind  that  can  hardly 
be  done  justice  to  by  a  mere  narrative  of  the  life- 
history  of  neurones;  and,  while  it  may  be  justifiable, 
on  scientific  grounds,  to  pursue  this  method  to  the 
point  where  a  denial  of  the  existence  of  mind  becomes 
inevitable;  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  there  are  obliga- 
tions of  scientific  candor  involved  in  recognizing  that 
the  non-existence  of  mind,  while  justifiable  as  hypoth- 
esis, has  as  yet  no  status  as  a  scientific  judgment.  It 
is,  of  course,  true  that,  after  restricting  the  field  to 
physiological  physics,  the  concept  of  mind  is  not 
"needed,"  but  it  becomes  at  least  quite  convenient 
the  moment  it  is  undertaken  to  make  physical  theory 
consistent  with  the  facts  of  life. 

It  has  further  seemed  to  me  that  these  "facts  of 
life"  constitute  the  material,  the  discussion  of  which 
affords  the  only  adequate  means  of  approach  to  the 


iv  PREFACE 

nature  and  character  of  mind.  They  arc,  therefore, 
the  proper  subject-matter  for  the  "science  of  mind"; 
at  least  if  these  facts  of  general  historical  culture  are 
accepted  as  the  subject-matter  of  a  discussion  of  the 
mental  life,  a  fairly  clear  line  of  distinction  may  be 
drawn  between  them  and  the  subject-matter  of  "psy- 
chology," and  it  appears  that  such  a  distinction  is 
very  sadly  needed  at  the  present  time. 

Another  very  serious  matter  is  involved  at  this 
point.  So  long  as  our  "science"  confines  itself  to  a 
description  of  sensibly  observable  fact,  mind  will  never 
be  "found."  Mind,  then,  is  either  a  fact  of  a  different 
order  from  physiological  process,  or  it  is  unreal  and 
non-existent.  But  whence  comes  the  force  of  such  a 
conclusion?  It  as  a  judgment  is  itself  of  the  nature 
of  mind  and  rests  upon  cultural  fact  as  known  his- 
torically; and  mind  as  fact  is  an  inference  from  the 
total  of  human  culture.  The  proper  mode  of  discus- 
sion, therefore,  in  matters  involving  judgments  about 
mind,  including  that  of  the  non-existence  of  mind, 
appears  to  be  logic. 

While  I  hope  that  I  have*  not  done  too  great  violence 
to  the  "facts,"  I  concede  that  I  have  been  more  con- 
cerned about  the  meaning  of  mind  as  the  medium  and 
substance  of  human  culture.  It  is  a  simple  matter 
to  correct  one's  mistakes  in  matters  of  fact;  but  an 
unusually  difficult  task  to  undo  the  consequences  of 
serious  errors  in  logic.  I  shall  welcome  such  of  the 
latter  as  may  be  pointed  out  to  me. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  I.     Introduction 1 

Chapter  II.     Mind  as  Attention — The  Cognitive  Func- 
tion         11 

PART  I. 
ATTENTION  AS  KNOWING. 

Chapter  III.    Attention  as  Object-Forms,  or  Percep- 
tion      20 

Chapter  IV.     (I)   Feeling  as  Perceptive  Attention 33 

Chapter  V.     (II)   Sensation  as  Perceptive  Attention..  56 

PART  II. 
ATTENTION  AS  MEMORY. 

Chapter  VI.     Memory,  or  Attention  as  Retention 85 

Chapter  VII.     (I)  Memory  as  Learning 94 

Chapter  VIII.     (II)  Memory  as  Recall 101 

Chapter  IX.     (Ill)  Memory  as  Recognition 107 

PART  III. 
ATTENTION  AS  THOUGHT. 

Chapter  X.     Inference,  or  Attention  as  Thinking US 

Chapter  XI.  (I)  Inference  as  Unconscious,  or  Implicit  123 
Chapter  XII.  (II)  Inference  as  Conscious,  or  Explicit  129 
Chapter  XIII.     (HI)    Inference  as  Synoptic,  and  Or- 

c.anization    138 

PART  IV. 

MIND  AS  ACTION. 

Chapter  XIV.     Mind  as  Volition,  or  Will 145 


vi  CONTEXTS 

Chapter  X\".     (I)  Volition  as  Automatic  or  Instinctive  140 

Chapter  XVI.  (II)  Volition  as  Trained  Instinct,  or 
Reflex    153 

Chapter  XVII.     (Ill)   Volition  as  Learned  Reaction, 

or   Habit 158 

PART  V. 

MIND  AS  OBJECTIVE— THE  SYNTHESIS  OF 
KNOWING   AND   ACTION. 

Chapter  XVIII.     Mind   as   Imagination 165 

Chapter  XIX.     (I)  Imagination  as  Instinct 170 

Chapter  XX.     (II)   Imagination    as    Imitation 183 

Chapter  XXI.     (Ill)   Imagination   as    Complication 101 

Chapter  XXII.     (IV)    Imagination  as  Speculation,  or 

Adventure 108 

Chapter  XXIII.     (V)   Imagination  as  Creative 203 

Chapter  XXIV.     (VI)   Mind-Creation  as  Logic — Not 

Physiology    210 

Chapter  XXV.     (VII)   Mind-Creation  as  Art 210 

Chapter  XXVI.  (VIII)  Mind-Creation  as  Morality...  223 
Chapter  XXVII.     (IX)   Imagination   as   Reason 230 

PART  VI. 

MIND  AS  PRODUCTIVE— THE  CREATION  OF 

INSTITUTIONAL  FORMS. 

Chapter  XXVIII.     The  Practical  or  Producitve  Lite...  236 

Chapter  XXIX.     (I)   The  Practical  Character 240 

Chapter  XXX.  (II)  The  Social  or  Corporate  Char- 
acter      264 

Chapter  XXXI.     (Ill)   The  Cultural  Life  as  Ideal 201 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Within  recent  years  there  has  come  a  very  profound 
and  general  realization  of  the  importance  of  psychol- 
ogy for  the  practical  life.  So  widespread  is  this  con- 
viction at  present  that  there  is  scarcely  a  business  or 
profession  in  which  psychology  does  not  play  a  large 
part.  The  process  of  application  of  the  knowledge  of 
psychology  to  the  requirements  of  practical  living 
began  with  the  discovery  that  the  success  of  the  prac- 
tical life  depends  upon  the  making  use  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature.  That  appeal  to  human  nature 
was  naturally  first  made  by  those  interests  which  have 
to  do  most  directly  with  human  nature;  namely,  poli- 
tics, law,  education,  medicine,  etc.  But  it  has  been 
learned  recently  that  psychology,  as  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  can  be  applied  with  equal  success  to 
many  other  kinds  of  interests.  Thus  its  use  in  busi- 
ness and  industrial  relations  is  becoming  very  exten- 
sive, and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  results  achieved 
in  these  fields  will  be  as  important  as  results  attained 
by  the  application  of  psychology  in  other  fields. 

But  if  the  application  of  psychology  in  the  practical 
life  is  of  such  tremendous  importance,  the  most  neces- 
sary requirement  of  anyone  who  expects  to  succeed 
in  the  practical  world,  is  as  broad  a  knowledge  of  psy- 
chology as  it  is  possible  for  him  to  attain.    An  equally 


2  THE  LIFE  OF   MIND 

important  matter  for  the  man  who  wishes  to  succeed 
practically,  is  that  his  knowledge  of  psychology  should 
be  right.  Thousands  of  books  are  written  upon  psy- 
chology, periodicals  are  established  to  further  the 
knowledge  of  it  and  its  uses,  and  psychology  has  be- 
come one  of  the  outstanding  topics  for  magazines  and 
journals  of  all  kinds.  This  all  means  that  psychology 
will  play  a  leading  part  in  the  practical  life  of  the 
future,  and  it  means  also  that  if  anyone  desires  a  share 
in  that  leadership  he  must  equip  himself  with  the 
necessary  knowledge  of  psychology.  But  it  is  unfor- 
tunate that  not  all  the  books  and  articles  on  psychol- 
ogy are  of  equal  value.  Many  of  them  are  of  no  pos- 
sible use,  and  it  is  unfortunate  that  the  person  begin- 
ning the  study  of  psychology  often  cannot  tell  what 
sort  of  psychology  he  is  most  likely  to  get. 

Since  it  is  true  that  the  beginner  in  psychology  is 
in  danger  of  being  deceived  into  the  loss  of  his  time, 
it  seems  possible  that  a  book  on  psychology  might  be 
written  which  would  be,  so  far  as  it  undertook  to  go, 
not  only  as  nearly  correct  as  possible,  but  also  written 
clearly  enough  to  adapt  itself  to  the  limited  time  and 
leisure  of  the  person  engaged  in  practical  activities,  no 
less  than  to  the  more  rigid  requirements  of  students. 
Such  a  work  should  be  consistent  with  the  principles 
worked  out  by  the  science  of  psychology.  But  it 
should  also  be  consistent  with  the  insights  gained  from 
other  types  of  contact  with  human  nature.  And  it 
should  be  simple  and  so  clearly  stated  that  it  would 
require  a  minimum  of  preparation  in  physiology,  either 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  3 

on  the  part  of  the  student  or  of  the  person  who  reads 
desultorily  outside  of  academic  connections.  For  the 
one  group,  it  should  be  stated  in  the  language  of  ordi- 
nary life,  in  so  far  as  that  is  possible,  and  in  any  case 
it  should  be  illustrated  with  the  sort  of  facts  and  activ- 
ities that  are  commonly  to  be  recognized  in  practical 
activity  everywhere,  and  which  should  not  have  pecu- 
liar reference  to  the  more  or  less  artificial  and  strained 
conditions  of  the  laboratory.  Genuine  human  experi- 
ences always  take  place  under  uncontrolled  conditions, 
hence  are  not  properly  represented  by  the  hothouse 
variety  cultivated  in  the  laboratory. 

The  science  of  human  nature  has  worked  out  and 
demonstrated  three  fundamental  principles  upon  which 
the  mental  life  of  mankind  is  based.  These  can  be 
stated  so  simply  that  anybody  can  understand  them 
at  once  and  without  special  preparation  or  unneces- 
sary effort,  and  it  seems  quite  gratuitous  to  give  them 
their  customary  pretentious  complicated  statement. 
They  can  be  accurately  stated  in  a  few  short  sen- 
tences; but  their  application  to  the  details  of  the  life 
and  work  of  the  average  person  requires  a  considerable 
volume.  We  can  here  merely  state  the  three  principles 
in  this  Introduction,  but  their  application  to  the  prob- 
lems of  rational  and  cultural,  or  "practical,"  living 
will  occupy  us  throughout  the  rest  of  this  book.  Our 
first  obligation  is,  then,  to  state  these  principles  here 
in  brief  form,  and  to  make  their  application  as  clear  as 
possible  in  succeeding  chapters. 

The  first,  and  in  many  ways  the  most  important,  of 


4  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

the  principles  is  this:  Mind  always  acts  through  its 
body,  and  is  known  only  in  and  through  its  actions. 
This  principle  means  that  mind  never  acts  directly, 
but  can  act  only  through  the  movements  of  the  organ- 
ism and  the  objects  with  which  the  organism  comes 
in  contact.  Then  all  we  can  ever  know  of  the  mind 
will  come  through  a  knowledge  of  the  objects  of  mind 
and  of  the  environment,  including  the  human  body, 
and  their  movements.  This  principle  is  primarily 
practical  and  cultural,  since  it  refers  us  to  the  external 
world  of  objects  and  relations  both  for  any  knowledge, 
whether  theoretical  or  practical,  which  we  can  have 
about  it. 

The  second  principle  is,  that  mind  always  acts  as  a 
whole  or  as  a  unity,  and  is  known  only  as  such.  This 
means  that  whenever  the  mind  acts  it  is  always  the 
whole  mind  that  acts  and  never  a  mere  part  of  it. 
Thus  when  I  see  a  tree,  my  whole  mind  is  centered 
upon  the  tree  and  I  am  not  seeing  the  tree  with  only 
a  part  of  my  mind.  When  I  think  of  an  object,  that 
object  is  the  point  around  which  my  mind  as  a  whole 
is  organized.  Then  mind  can  be  defined  as  the  active 
unity  which  manifests  itself  in  and  comprehends  the 
organization  of  objects  in  our  world.  And  by  objects 
we  mean  primarily  those  things  which  we  touch  and 
handle  and  eat  and  sell  in  our  cultural  and  practical 
relations,  and  not  objects  which  are  supposed  by  some 
mystery  to  be  only  "in"  or  ''out  of"  the  mind  and 
therefore  unreal. 

The  third  principle  is  the  fundamental  practical  law 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  S 

of  life.  It  states  that  mind,  for  us,  completes  itself  in 
the  objects  of  our  external  or  practical  world,  and  is 
controlled  only  through  the  manipulation  of  the  things 
of  the  practical  world.  This  is  the  fundamental  edu- 
cational law  or  principle,  and  it  governs  all  the  growth 
aspects  of  human  activity.  Like  the  preceding  prin- 
ciple, it  includes  two  great  truths:  One  is,  that  mind 
is  complete  and  fully  developed  only  when  it  embodies 
itself  in  corporate  form;  that  is,  when  it  creates  for 
itself  a  body  which  is  the  instrument  appropriate  for 
its  action,  or  through  which  it  can  act  completely. 
This  aspect  of  the  law  explains  all  the  cultural  and 
social  life.  But  its  significance  for  the  practical  life 
of  the  ordinary  man  lies  in  the  fact  that  his  mind 
expresses  and  completes  itself  in  the  objects  which  he 
uses  and  desires  and  which  thus  incorporate  his  inter- 
ests and  purposes.  In  the  case  of  the  isolated  man, 
then,  mind  completes  itself  in  property.  Possession  is 
then  the  practical  act  of  mind  as  individualized.  The 
other  great  truth  in  this  law  is,  that  the  control  of  men 
and  of  human  affairs  generally  is  effected  through  the 
control  or  manipulation  of  these  property-objects. 
Control  is  then  the  practical  act  of  mind  as  corporately 
individuated.  Human  order  or  organization  is  a  mat- 
ter of  the  display  or  disposition  or  layout  of  these 
property-objects  with  respect  to  each  other,  and  with 
respect  to  the  objects  of  the  cultural  life,  among  which 
latter  is  the  person.  Thus,  the  person  in  whose  hand 
power  is  to  lie  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  so  far  as  power 
implies   the   organization   and   control  of   life,   is   the 


C  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

person  who  has  possessory  control  of  objects,  the  man 
of  property. 

This  latter  aspect  of  the  principle  is  of  universal 
application,  and  it  states  the  law  of  control  and  the 
executive  function  wherever  executive  control  and  organ- 
izing intelligence  are  required.  We  are  here  discussing 
the  question  as  a  matter  of  fact.  Its  aspect  of  right  we 
have  discussed  elsewhere.  Here  we  are  concerned  to 
make  clear  simply  the  practical  meaning  of  the  law 
of  the  objectivity  of  mind-content  as  it  governs  human 
relations.  It  means  that  control  of  men  and  of  human 
relations  generally  is  effected  through  the  control  of 
the  things  of  the  external  world,  and  this  refutes  the 
old  superstition  that  men  are  controlled  or  "managed" 
by  "swaying"  or  "influencing"  their  minds.  You  can 
"move"  men  by  preaching  and  persuasion,  but  you 
can  never  tell  in  what  direction  or  to  what  end  they 
will  move.  If  you  are  interested  in  the  results  of 
men's  actions,  determine  those  results  in  advance  by 
controlling  the  objects  through  which  they  act.  Their 
life  is  a  function  of  those  actions,  and,  since  their 
minds  are  made  up  of  the  order  of  those  objects,  when 
you  control  the  objects  you  determine  the  make-up  of 
their  minds,  and  become,  for  good  or  ill,  the  directing 
influence  in  their  lives. 

The  principle  of  control  is  the  contribution  which  a 
rational  psychology  makes  to  the  sciences  of  economics 
and  politics.  It  is  not  asserted,  naturally,  that  psy- 
chology has  consciously  propounded  this  or  any  other 
principle.     Psychology  has,  in  recent  years,  at  least, 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  7 

been  only  slightly  interested  in  matters  of  principle. 
Or,  perhaps  it  would  be  truer,  if  a  little  less  generous, 
to  say  that  recent  psychology,  because  of  the  point 
of  view  and  method  uniformly  adopted,  is  not  compe- 
tent to  approach  problems  of  principle;  and  as  a  con- 
sequence the  contribution  which  the  science  is  making 
to  human  culture,  if  we  may  require  a  contribution 
in  the  form  of  an  organized  body  of  knowledge,  is 
just  nothing  at  all.  It  has  offered  rather  a  confusion 
of  partial  insights,  and  has  been  able  to  furnish  no 
suggestions  of  principle  in  connection  with  its  chosen 
subject-matter.  Consequently  the  formulation  of  prin- 
ciples such  as  those  stated  above  depends  upon  an 
interpretation  of  human  nature  which  goes  beyond  the 
fragmentary  and  partial  views  of  strict  "scientific" 
psychology,  and  suggests  therefore  that  psychology 
is  making  its  contacts  with  the  whole  of  culture  from 
a  wrong  angle.  It  has  considered  its  task  as  making 
an  interpretation  of  human  nature  considered  as  a 
function  of  physical  nature,  and  the  result  has  been  to 
contribute  a  few  hints  to  the  sciences  of  physiology 
and  biology.  But  in  the  pretense  that  it  makes, 
namely,  that  the  collection  of  these  hints,  stated  with 
some  degree  of  success  in  the  form  of  descriptive 
classifications,  and  with  constant  somewhat  forced 
analogy  to  the  form  and  order  of  biological  science, 
this,  it  seems  clear,  if  we  are  to  have  any  respect  for 
the  common  meaning  which  "mind"  has  and  has 
always  had  among  men,  is  not  psychology  at  all,  and 
if  this  procedure  is  to  be  strictly  honest  with  itself 


8  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

it  will  adopt  some  such  name  as  has  been  suggested  in 
the  body  of  this  text, — physiosophy. 

The  point  of  view  of  this  physiosophy  demands  a 
certain  respect  when  apprehended  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  wholeness  of  reality,  in  that  it  postulates 
human  nature  as  the  mediating  nexus  between  nature 
on  the  one  hand  and  culture  on  the  other.  But  its 
error  in  principle  consists  in  the  reference  of  human 
nature  backward  to  raw  nature  as  the  standard  of  the 
system  of  judgments  which  is  to  make  up  the  body 
of  the  knowledge  or  science  of  human  nature.  This 
has  led  to  the  absurdest  extremes — extremes  which 
violate  the  sense  of  proportion  and  reality  of  the  very 
commonest  of  human  common  sense.  It  seems  that 
it  ought  to  be  a  sufficient  commentary  and  criticism 
of  these  merely  to  state  them  in  unadorned  language, 
since,  when  covered  with  ''scientific1'  terminology  and 
pruned  to  standardization  in  the  classificatory  systems, 
they  escape  detection  of  their  emptiness  through  the 
apparent  regularity  and  familiarity  of  their  forms. 
Thus  in  a  number  of  famous  systems  human  nature 
has  been  explained  by  reducing  it  to  the  form  of  the 
atom  under  the  cover  of  ambiguity  which  the  term 
"individual"  invests  the  atom  with.  Again,  human 
nature  has  been  disposed  of  as  the  "consciousness," 
and  this  has  been  interpreted  in  two  ways;  one  of 
which  usually  dressing  human  nature  up  in  the  vest- 
ments of  the  medieval  >'soul,,,  and  the  other  in  the 
abstraction  of  "function,''  which  is  conceived  as  a  sort 
of  spiritualization  of  the  scentific  concept  of  process. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIX!)  9 

And  the  cloak  of  process  has  covered  as  many  different 
types  of  multitudes  of  sins  as  has  the  term  soul,  and 
with  approximately  the  same  degree  of  confusion.  The 
superstitious  respect  for  process  and  function  is  at 
present  flooding  the  world  (and  the  market)  with  a 
various  and  dubious  brood  of  "behaviorisms,"  and  it 
begins  to  be  a  serious  question  as  to  whether  the  inter- 
est in  human  nature  may  not  be  completely  taken  over 
by  and  divided  between  a  popular  form  of  religious 
superstition  and  supernaturalism  on  the  one  hand,  and 
a  crude  and  coarsely  practical  commercialism  on  the 
other. 

While  both  of  these  consequences  are  unfortunate, 
and  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  rational  choice  between 
them,  the  influence  of  superstition  is  in  many  ways 
preferable  to  that  of  commerce.  The  former,  at  least, 
perhaps  one  should  say  at  most,  points  in  the  direction 
of  an  interpretation  of  human  nature  onward  in  terms 
of  culture  and  ends,  even  if  its  ideas  of  culture  and 
ends  are  impossibly  crude;  while  the  latter  with  appar- 
ent deliberateness  finds  the  essence  and  significance 
of  human  nature  in  a  backward  reference  to  material- 
ity and  source.  And,  in  so  far  as  psychology,  as 
science  of  human  nature,  may  pretend  to  offer  sug- 
gestions to  politics  and  economics  as  representing  ulti- 
mate practical  interests,  its  connection  even  with  super- 
stition and  fanaticism  has  historically  proved  more 
fruitful  than  its  unholy  alliance  with  practical  "busi- 
ness." 

It  is  the  thesis  of  this  book  that  the  connections 


10  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

which  the  study  of  human  nature  should  keep  in  mind 
arc  those  which  find  both  matter  and  form  in  the  con- 
tent of  historical  culture  which  our  total  knowledge 
provides  us  with.  Consequently,  it  is  believed  that 
the  content  of  psychology  is  the  concrete  objectivity 
of  human  culture  and  its  history  as  precipitated  pri- 
marily in  the  arts  and  craft-practices.  This  is  the 
justification  of  the  frequent  and  constant  reference  to 
simple  and  popular  ideas  and  processes  as  illustrations 
of  mental  life.  The  elements,  very  necessary  to  the 
requirements  of  strict  "science,"  furnished  to  psycho- 
logical content  by  empirical  research  may,  it  is  sub- 
mitted, be  derived  from  the  analysis  of  the  large  factor 
which  the  active  mind  of  the  experimenter  contributes 
to  the  total  result  in  empirical  procedure.  The  convic- 
tion that  general  culture  is  the  proper  source  for  both' 
fact  and  interpretation  with  respect  to  mind  is  the 
ground  of  justification  for  the  wide  latitude  employed 
in  the  selection  of  fact  and  illustration.  This  seems 
to  be  a  peculiarly  safe  procedure  when  the  cultural 
facts  selected  represent  objective  growing  institutions, 
and  the  author  confesses  the  old-fashioned  view  that 
the  one  indestructible  evidence  for  the  objective  reality 
of  mind  consists  in  the  finding  mind  embodied  in  a 
living  and  active  institution. 

Since  this  book  makes  no  pretense  to  being  a  "tech- 
nically scientific"  work  on  "psychology,"  there  remains 
the  possibility  that  it  may  be  found  to  have  said  some- 
thing about  mind. 


CHAPTER  II. 

MIND   AS   ATTENTION THE    COGNITIVE   FUNCTION. 

Everybody  knows  in  a  general  way  what  is  meant 
by  attention,  and  it  is  only  necessary  to  state  it  in 
simple  terms  in  order  to  make  the  facts  easily  recogniz- 
able by  all.  One  thing  is  clear  to  begin  with,  that  is, 
that  attention  is  a  part  of  or  has  something  to  do  with 
every  one  of  our  conscious  experiences,  no  matter  by 
what  names  they  may  be  called.  It  seems  to  be  just 
that  element  which  is  common  to  every  fact  of  con- 
scious life,  and  because  it  is  so  common  and  so  imme- 
diate it  escapes  our  habitual  notice.  We  therefore  do 
not  often  have  occasion  to  pick  out  or  make  up  just 
the  sets  of  words  that  would  properly  describe  it. 

But  if  it  is  not  difficult  to  describe,  it  is  also  not 
difficult  to  instance  or  point  out  in  the  experiences 
which  every  one  of  us  has  repeatedly  every  day.  If 
you  tell  me  to  "attend  to  my  own  business"  you  know 
very  well  what  you  mean,  and  you  also  expect  me  to 
know  what  you  mean.  You  see  that  I  am  doing  or 
saying  something  which  interferes  with  what  you 
regard  as  properly  belonging  to  you,  which  pertains 
to  your  special  interests  in  such  a  way  that  you  alone 
can  see  to  its  accomplishment.  And  you  expect  me 
to  understand  that  there  is  a  definite  line  between 
what  I  do  or  say  and  what  you  may  do  or  say,  and 
that  when  1  cross  thai  line  I  am  encroaching  on  what 


12  THE  LIFE  OF  MIX!) 

directly  concerns  your  "attention"  and  directing  my 
"attention"  to  something  outside  the  field  of  my  proper 
interests. 

Or,  to  take  another  example,  if  you  and  I  are  look- 
ing out  of  the  same  car  window  as  we  go  to  our  work, 
we  will   not  necessarily  see  the  same  objects  or  the 
objects  in  the  same  order,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
car  window  marks  off  or  outlines  one  set  of  objects  as 
it  passes  them.     I  will  perhaps  see  the  bigness  and 
costliness  of  the  buildings  while  you   may  see  little 
besides  the  ugliness  and  dirtiness  of  the  whole  scheme 
of  things.     I  am  "attending"  to  the  objects  as  if  they 
contribute  or  tend  to  contribute  to  the  business  life  of 
the  city  only,  and  I  see  the  buildings  as  big  enough 
to  house  an  array  of  business  processes,  or  as  having 
cost  enough  to  indicate  a  certain  standing  of  the  people 
who  occupy  them.    You  "attend"  to  them  as  the  per- 
haps necessary  instruments  of  the.  process  of  making  a 
living,  but  with  the  element  of  regret  that  they  do  not 
satisfy  your  sense  of  beauty.    Or,  you  and  I  are  look- 
ing at  the  same  picture  in  the  gallery,  or  at  the  same 
suit  of  clothes  as  displayed  in  the  store  window.    You 
say  you  do  not  like  the  color,  while  for  the  life  of  me 
I  cannot  say  what  the  color  of  the  object  I  am  looking 
at  is.    I  am  looking  at,  or  am  absorbed  in,  or  "attend- 
ing to"  the  "cut"  of  the  clothes  or  the  design  of  the 
picture,  and  the  color  has  not  yet  entered  my  mind. 
I  have  not  attended  to  the  color,  or  it  has  not  yet  got 
inside  the  little  circle  which  my  mind  throws  around 
the  objects  which  it  concentrates  upon. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  13 

Or,  to  take  still  another  instance,  you  are  standing 
on  a  high  hill  enjoying  the  scenery.  The  country  as  a 
whole  has  an  effect  upon  you  which  you  enjoy,  but 
which  you  cannot  perhaps  describe.  When  you  attempt 
later  to  tell  a  friend  about  it,  all  you  can  do  is  to 
exclaim,  "It  was  beautiful,"  and  if  he  demands  more 
you  will  say  the  same  thing  again  with  adjectives  that 
intensify  the  term  beautiful,  as  "very,"  "unusually," 
etc.  The  fact  is  that  you  do  not  know  in  detail  what 
you  have  seen— you  have  merely  got  a  rather  big  but 
very  indefinite  impression.  Your  mind  as  a  whole  has 
been  filled  up  with  what  you  may  later  analyze  into 
masses  of  color  and  form,  your  attention  has  been 
apparently  passive  to  the  whole  effect.  But  now  take 
your  place  again  on  the  hill,  but  this  time  with  a 
friend.  This  time  you  do  not  merely  "drink  in"  the 
whole  effect,  but  pick  out,  select,  specify,  choose  some 
objects  to  the  neglect  of  others.  If  you  find  this  diffi- 
cult, ask  your  friend  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
objects  in  the  view  that  strike  him  as  interesting.  At 
your  friend's  suggestion  you  unconsciously  concentrate 
your  mind  on  these  objects.  You  can  then  study  and 
describe  in  detail  the  objects  which  fill  your  view,  they 
have  been  brought  within  your  "field  of  attention." 

It  is  this  figure  of  the  field  of  attention  which  has 
for  a  long  time  served  psychologists  as  the  simplest 
and  most  direct  way  of  describing  these  simple  facts. 
The  car  window  was  a  rather  narrowly  defined  "field1' 
of  attention,  but  one  made  somewhat  complicated  by 
the  movement  of  the  car.     The  objects  which  can  be 


14  THE  LIFE  OF  MIXD 

seen  through  it  make  up  what  has  often  been  called 
the  field  of  vision.  It  shows  that  the  most  simple  and 
immediate  states  of  attention  have  to  do  with  objects 
of  our  senses,  those  which  appear  to  us  through  the 
functioning  of  our  sense  organs. 

But  attention  is  not  restricted  to  merely  sense  fields. 
Many  of  the  most  important  facts  of  attention  do  not 
directly  involve  sense  facts  at  all;  that  is,  are  not 
made  up  of  the  pictures  of  objects  as  the  objects  stand 
before  the  eyes  or  present  to  the  sense  organ.  A  good 
instance  of  this  form  of  attention  is  the  case  in  which 
you  "try  to  remember"  (Part  II).  Trying  to  remem- 
ber is  of  course  a  very  different  experience  from  that 
of  merely  remembering.  Merely  remembering  a  lot  of 
details  often  means  no  more  than  that  the  details  are 
there  present  now  in  your  field  of  attention;  that  is, 
it  has  no  specific  reference  to  the  past  at  all,  but 
merely  does  imply,  beyond  the  present  consciousness, 
that  some  of  the  facts  now  in  your  attention  carry 
with  them  the  peculiar  feeling  of  familiarity.  But 
familiarity  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  the  fact 
that  feels  familiar  has  been  experienced  before;  it 
arises  with  many  experiences  which  we  know  at  the 
time  we  are  experiencing  them  that  we  never  have  had 
before.  This  fact  of  "recognition"  we  must  describe 
in  its  proper  place,  but  here  we  note  that  it  is  a  factor 
in  every  act  of  attention.  We  must  here  go  on  with 
the  case  of  attention  which  we  noted  as  indicated  in 
the  act  of  trying  to  remember. 

You  and  I   are  discussing  a  certain   fact   when   the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  15 

question  arises  as  to  who  told  you  of  the  circumstances 
within  which  the  fact  occurred.  At  once  and  without 
hesitancy  the  image  of  the  man  appears  before  your 
"mind's  eye,"  and  the  image  persists  there  so  plainly 
that  you  could  describe  it  in  its  minutest  detail.  You 
say,  "I  know  this  man  as  well  as  I  know  myself,"  and 
"I  see  him  now  as  he  stood  at  the  table  telling  me 
about  it,"  but  you  cannot  recall  his  name.  The  very 
vividness  of  the  picture  seems  to  block  the  way  to 
the  place  where  you  know  the  name  is  to  be  found. 
You  know  with  certainty  every  circumstance  within 
the  circle  in  which  the  name  belongs,  but  the  name 
will  not  come.  You  say,  "Let  me  see,"  and  "I  must 
try  to  remember,"  and  you  do  certain  characteristic 
things  like  scratching  your  head  or  putting  your  hand 
up  to  your  ear  or  to  your  nose  as  if  to  help  "smell  it 
out."  But  what  you  very  litterally  do  is  to  go  through 
your  mind  turning  up  now  this  now  that  familiar 
object  in  the  hope  that  somehow  it  will  suggest  the 
missing  name.  That  is,  you  know  that  the  name 
makes  up  a  part  of  a  more  or  less  definite  "field"  of 
fact  which  we  called  above  the  field  of  attention,  and 
you  are  trying  U*  build  up  this  whole  field  in  the  mind 
in  the  hope  that  the  missing  name  will  appear  in  it. 
Here  the  attention  is  concerned  wholly  with 
the  object  which  you  see  only  in  the  mind's 
eye,  and  we  call  the  situation  a  case  of  memory 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  we  are  not  concerned 
with  the  mere  presence  of  facts.  Memory  then  refers 
to  a  quality  of  facts  as  experienced,  and  not  to  any 


16  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

supposed  relation  of  time  which  on  analogical  images 
of  space  is  taken  to  hold  between  the  facts.  Memory 
then  is  a  case  of  attention,  that  in  which  the  direct 
sense  element  either  does  not  occur  or  does  not  appear 
as  necessary  in  the  interpretation  of  fact. 

Another  and  still  more  difficult  case  of  attention  is 
the  experience  commonly  called  inference  (Part  III). 
It  can  be  recognized  readily  in  many  of  the  common 
forms  of  language,  and  it  is  given  fullest  description 
as  an  interpretation  of  the  truth  value  of  experience 
in  the  science  called  logic.  But  the  mere  mental 
machinery  through  which  inferences  are  made  is  not 
fully  described  in  logic;  the  descriptive  aspect  of  the 
process  is  left  to  psychology. 

We  will  approach  this  question  through  examples. 
You  look  out  the  window  and  observe  that  the  ground 
is  wet.  You  say  that  it  must  have  been  raining.  Y'ou 
failed  to  find  a  book  where  you  are  sure  you  left  it, 
and  you  say  someone  has  removed  it.  The  sun  sets 
in  beautiful  colors,  and  you  feel  the  elation  of  expec- 
tancy of  a  fine  day  tomorrow  for  the  game  or  the 
vacation  trip  you  have  planned.  You  find  that  you 
have  saved  a  little  more  money  from  your  last  pay, 
and  this  directly  is  taken  to  mean  that  you  can  buy 
the  book  you  saw  at  the  store  and  which  you  so  much 
wanted.  In  fad,  any  experience  that  is  consciously 
or  unconsciously  connected  in  certain  ways  with  an- 
other experience  can  be  said  to  depend  upon  that 
experience,  and  this  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  state- 
ment that  one  fact  is  inferred  from  another.    The  fact 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  17 

that  it  has  rained  is  inferred  from  the  fact  that  the 
ground  is  wet.  That  someone  has  interferred  with 
your  book  is  inferred  from  the  fact  that  it  is  not  now 
where  you  left  it  shortly  before.  Now  there  are  vari- 
ous degrees  of  dependence  of  one  fact  upon  another, 
and  this  is  expressed  by  saying  that  the  relations  in- 
volved in  some  inferences  are  more  direct  than  those 
in  others.  You  infer  that  someone  has  removed  your 
book  because  you  know  that  the  book  cannot  move 
of  itself.  That  is,  the  dependence  of  the  fact  of  the 
book's  being  gone  upon  removal  by  some  person  itself 
depends  upon  the  knowledge  that  books  cannot  move 
of  their  own  power.  This  latter  relation  is  not  clearly 
expressed  in  your  thought,  but  it  would  be  expressed 
fully  in  words  if  it  were  not  a  silent  inference  that 
we  all  make  and  is  thus  not  necessary  to  be  expressed. 
But  if  you  are  asked,  "How  do  you  know  that  some- 
body has  tampered  with  your  book?"  you  would  an- 
swer, "Because  the  book  could  not  have  run  away," 
and  you  would  be  likely  to  give  your  questioner  a  look 
which  would  mean,  "You  fool,  you  ought  to  know 
that."  And  the  meaning  he  would  get  from  your  look 
would  itself  be  an  inference. 

Strictly  speaking,  then,  any  experience  which  means 
anything  other  than  literally  itself,  or  which  refers 
you  or  leads  your  thought  on  to  something  else,  is  an 
inference.  This  is  the  most  important  fact  to  be  found 
in  experience  anywhere,  and  it  is  really  universal;  it 
makes  up  a  part  of  every  specific  experience  and  thus 
a  large  part  of  the  whole  volume  of  experience  which 


18  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

we  know  as  the  total  of  life.  And  life  is  rich  or  poor, 
significant  or  petty,  just  in  proportion  as  it  abounds 
in  relations  of  this  sort. 

That  the  experience  of  inference  is  fundamental  in 
all  life  is  shown  by  the  important  place  which  words 
expressing  it  occupy  in  all  our  language.  And  many 
unexpressed  inferences;  that  is,  unexpressed  in  words, 
get  represented  to  us  in  gestures,  grimaces,  facial  ex- 
pressions of  all  sorts  and  in  actions  generally.  The 
eyes  "speak  messages  for  which  the  lips  can  find  no 
words."  -From  his  actions  in  the  presence  of  giyen 
circumstances  you  know  your  dog's  meaning  even 
though  he  has  no  words  nor  any  "telling  glances." 
But  for  human  beings,  particularly  in  the  higher  cul- 
tural relations,  the  important  bearer  of  meanings  is 
language.  And  the  large  number  of  such  words  as 
because,  since,  yet,  if,  then,  therefore,  and  of  many 
phrases  such  as  "that  being  the  case,  then — ,"  "on 
condition  that,"  etc.,  indicates  the  importance  which 
inference  has  in  our  communication.  It  explains  the 
"suggestiveness"  of  poetic  forms  of  expressions  and 
the  tremendous  power  which  the  various  forms  of  art 
exercise  over  our  lives.  Inference,  then,  is  the  highest 
form  of  pure  attention. 

But  we  must  not  forget  the  fact  that  we  are  dealing 
here  with  the  various  forms  oj  attention,  the  various 
ways  by  which  our  minds  take  hold  of  the  objects 
which  make  up  our  environment  and  condition  our 
lives.  We  have  named  them  Perception,  Memory, 
and  Inference. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  19 

It  is  now  our  task  to  take  up  each  of  these  singly 
and  in  order,  to  describe  the  facts  of  experience  which 
they  enable  us  to  understand. 

Each  of  these  experience  forms  will  get  full  explana- 
tion as  we  go  on.  And  the  sum  of  our  discussion  will 
give  us  as  full  an  insight  into  the  workings  of  mind 
as  is  at  present  possible.  We  shall  find  that  there 
are  no  mysteries  hidden  away  in  dark  corners,  as  is 
too  often  supposed,  and  that  the  facts  will  bear  just 
as  plain  and  cold-blooded  description  as  will  the  facts 
in  any  other  department  of  science. 

We  do  not  mean  that  there  is  nothing  that  is  un- 
known, for  the  richness  of  the  mind-life  will  be  con- 
tinuously unfolded  to  us  just  as  long  as  we  shall  have 
minds  that  think  and  strive  to  know  the  truth  and 
the  reality  of  things.  But  we  do  mean  that  as  much 
can  be  known  about  the  nature  and  working  of  mind 
as  can  be  definitely  known  about  anything  else.  In- 
deed, we  know  vastly  more  about  mind  than  perhaps 
ever  will  be  vouchsafed  to  us  about  the  inner  realities 
of  mindless  things  or  any  of  the  other  important  parts 
of  this  vast  world.  We  shall  begin  with  an  account  of 
Perception. 


PART  I. 

ATTENTION   AS  KNOWING. 

CHAPTER  III. 

ATTENTION    AS    OBJECT-EORAIS,    OR    PERCEPTION. 

Perception,  as  has  been  said  already,  is  the  most 
easily  recognized  and  described  of  any  of  the  forms 
which  experiences  of  attention  ever  take.  It  can  per- 
haps best  be  understood  by  giving  first  a  few  simple 
illustrations  of  what  perception  means  in  our  ordi- 
nary experience.  If  I  hold  up  before  me  an  ordinary 
object,  say  an  apple,  and  ask  you  to  say  what  it  is 
that  you  see,  you  will  answer  at  once,  "I  see  an 
apple.''  But  this,  I  might  reply,  is  not  specifying  the 
details  of  what  you  see  as  clearly  as  I  had  intended 
that  you  should  do.  I  then  ask  you  to  look  again, 
and  you  persist  in  saying  that  you  see  an  apple.  This 
means  that  you  have  not  yet  learned  to  examine  your 
experiences  as  closely  as  you  must  if  you  are  to  learn 
how  to  analyze  them  psychologically.  So  I  go  on  to 
ask  you  particular  question  to  bring  out  the  parts  of 
the  experience  you  are  having.  I  ask  you  now  what 
color  the  object  is,  and  you  reply  that  it  is  red.  Then 
I  ask  you  what  form  it  has,  and  you  say  that  it  is 
round  or  is  spherical.  How  you  know  that  the  object 
is  spherical  or  has  depth  or  thickness  may  be  explained 
later  on.     I  now  ask  how  large  the  object  is,  and  you 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  21 

reply  that  it  is  as  big  as  your  fist  or  as  big  as  an 
orange,  etc.  And  we  might  go  on  in  this  way  to  point 
out  many  other  single  qualities  of  the  object. 

Now  let  us  see  what  exactly  it  is  that  you  have  seen. 
Your  first  answer,  "I  see  an  apple,"  we  find  to  mean 
that  a  certain  color,  a  certain  shape,  a  certain  size, 
and  so  on,  are  taken  together  to  mean  an  object  which 
you  know  how  to  put  to  certain  common  uses.  That 
is,  they,  all  together,  mean  an  object  which  you  eat, 
or  have  made  into  dumplings,  or  give  to  a  child,  or 
sell  at  so  much  per  pound  or  bushel.  All  these  quali- 
ties, when  found  together  in  just  this  combination, 
are  taken  as  the  sign  or  symbol  of  an  object  which 
you  use  in  certain  ways,  or  take  particular  attitudes 
towards,  depending  upon  your  interests  or  purposes 
at  the  moment.  But  let  us  determine  more  exactly 
still  what  it  is  that  you  see.  Suppose  that,  instead 
of  the  apple,  which  you  are  familiar  with,  we  take  an 
object  you  have  never  seen  before,  or  something  you 
do  not  see  clearly  enough  to  recognize.  Now  to  my 
question,  "What  do  you  see?"  you  will  probably  an- 
swer: "I  see  something  that  is  darkish  green  in  color, 
round  in  one  of  its  dimensions  and  cone  or  egg-shaped 
in  the  other.  It  looks  rough  on  its  surface  and  seems 
to  be  made  up  of  layers  of  lumpy  scales.  At  the 
smaller  end  it  has  a  tuft  of  leaflike  projections.  It 
has  a  peculiar  odor  which  I  do  not  know  how  to  de- 
scribe." And  you  might  go  on  to  name  as  many  of 
the  qualities  of  the  thing  as  you  could.  What  you 
really  see  then  in  an  object  with  which  you  are  not 


11  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

familiar  is  a  color,  a  shape,  a  size,  an  arrangement  of 
parts.  In  addition  to  this  you  smell  perhaps  certain 
odors,  and  hear  certain  sounds  when  the  object  is 
dropped  on  the  table  or  is  struck  a  blow.  If  you  take 
the  object  in  your  hands  you  get  certain  other  experi- 
ences from  it  which  you  name  cold,  rough,  soft,  vel- 
vety, etc.  If  you  move  it  about  you  say  that  it  is 
heavy  or  light,  or  has  a  certain  weight  as  compared 
with  other  objects  which  you  know. 

Xow  notice  that  in  describing  these  experiences  we 
use  the  terms  "it,"  "the  object, "  '"something,"  etc.; 
that  is,  we  always  speak  of  the  experiences  as  forming 
or  representing  a  whole.  And  in  our  ordinary  deal- 
ings with  it  we  do  not  refer  to  its  qualities  except  by 
way  of  comparing  it  with  other  things  in  order  to 
determine  the  kind  of  thing  it  is.  The  qualities  are 
unconsciously  combined  in  a  whole  and  the  whole 
named,  even  if  we  do  not  know  any  better  name  for 
it  than  "it,"  "object,"  "thing"  or  "something."  This 
name  then  corresponds  to  the  act  of  mind  whereby 
we  "know"  or  "perceive"  or  "cognize"  the  object,  and 
this  act  of  mind  psychology  calls  the  act  of  perception. 
After  it  is  perceived  as  a  whole  we  then  learn  a  name 
for  it,  and  we  add  the  word  "pineapple"  to  our 
vocabulary. 

The  important  thing  to  be  noticed  is,  then,  that  in 
perception  certain  qualities  are  combined  and  organ- 
ized into  wholes  and  that  these  wholes  become  the 
more  important  tools  by  means  of  which  we  com- 
municate with  each  other.     You  and  I  can  talk  and 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  23 

understand  each  other,  can  know  each  other's  mental 
processes,  because  we  have  minds  that  combine  the 
qualities  of  objects  in  practically  the  same  ways.  Your 
mind  and  mine  put  together  and  organize  the  colors, 
sounds,  feels,  smells,  tastes,  etc.,  of  objects  into  the 
same  or  similar  forms,  and  we  give  these  forms  the 
same  names  if  we  speak  the  same  language.  This 
means  that  all  minds  have  essentially  the  same  ways 
of  going  about  the  making  use  of  the  qualities  of 
objects,  and  this  common  way  of  ordering  the  facts 
of  experience  into  wholes  which  we  can  agree  upon 
is  called  perception.  Perception  is,  then,  this  seeing 
together,  or  combining  simple  sense  qualities  into  the 
units  of  experience. 

But  you  say  you  are  not  aware  of  combining  the 
qualities  of  things.  Ordinarily  this  is  the  case.  We 
glance  up  the  road  and  say,  "There  comes  an  auto- 
mobile," or  we  look  across  the  field  and  say,  "There  is 
a  horse."  We  do  not  say,  "There  is  an  object  which  is 
a  little  bigger  than  a  cow,  has  four  legs,  a  bushy  tail, 
a  mane,  is  black,  and  moves  about  and  eats  grass." 
This  combining  process  has  been  learned  and  forgot- 
ten, it  is  true,  but  it  goes  on  in  our  minds  neverthe- 
less. We  actually  see  a  certain  vague  set  of  circum- 
stances which  we  unconsciously  accept  as  a  whole 
and  say  without  hesitation,  "There  is  a  horse."  Hut 
what  actually  takes  place  is  shown  in  cases  where  we 
make  mistakes.  If  I  look  across  the  field  and  say, 
"There  stands  a  man,"  you  might  reply  that  you  do 
not  see  a  man  at  all,  or  you  may  laugh  at  my  mistake 


24  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

and  tell  me  what  I  see  is  not  a  man  at  all  but  a  post 
or  a  scarecrow. 

This  shows  that  in  perception  we  do  not  really  see 
all  the  details,  but  take  a  certain  general  appearance 
as  a  sign  or  cue  to  the  nature  of  the  object  seen.  That 
is,  a  certain  general  form  is  given  the  meaning  horse 
or  man  because  of  an  immediate  interpretation  which 
we  put  upon  it,  and  this  meaning  wre  may  later  see 
to  be  wrong  upon  closer  observation.  In  our  ordinary 
experience  and  in  the  case  of  familiar  things  percep- 
tion does  not  wait  for  the  close  inspection  of  its 
objects,  but  takes  an  outstanding  character  as  the  key 
to  the  whole  situation.  As  a  consequence  of  this  we 
are  spared  the  time  and  effort  necessary  for  close 
scrutiny,  but  we  are  also  liable  to  give  the  wrong 
meaning  to  the  facts  that  we  see.  Perception  then  of 
familiar  things  is  the  act  of  mind  by  which  we  give 
full  meanings  to  the  slight  cues  which  come  to  us 
from  the  qualities  of  the  objects  in  the  environment. 
It  is  the  act  of  mind  which  supplies  ready-made  past 
experiences  as  the  objects  that  are  appropriate  to 
sense  qualities  actually  given. 

There  are  many  simple  cases  where  wTe  can  explain 
the  nature  of  perception  by  these  mistakes  which  we 
make  in  perceiving  objects.  Take  the  kind  of  cases 
which  the  psychologists  call  illusions.  Recall  that  we 
have  explained  perception  as  the  act  of  mind  which 
gives  objective  meaning  to  a  suggestive  clue  from  some 
sense  source  or  sources.  You  would  likely  wish  to 
ask,  "Where  does  the  mind  get  this  meaning  which  it 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  25 

gives  to  the  sense  facts?"  The  answer  is  that  the 
mind  has  access  to  and  command  of  most  of  its  impor- 
tant past  experiences,  as  we  shall  explain  in  connection 
with  memory.  The  moment  a  quality  or  a  fact  is 
presented  to  it,  the  mind  responds  with  an  array  of 
objects  which  have  become  permanent  fixtures  through 
previous  experiences.  When  a  sense  suggestion  finds 
its  proper  object  in  the  mind,  or  unifies  with  its 
appropriate  group  of  qualities  which  it  finds  already 
in  the  mind,  it  is  said  to  get  its  right  meaning.  When 
it  fails  thus  to  connect  with  its  appropriate  object 
from  the  mind's  store,  the  succeeding  process  of  mind 
is  called  memory  or  imagination.  Then  the  cases  we 
referred  to  above  as  mistakes  are  cases  where  there 
is  no  proper  contact  between  the  sense  cue  and  the 
past  experience-form,  and  the  sense  cue  connects  with 
groups  of  qualities  with  which  it  does  not  agree.  Let 
us  look  for  a  moment  at  some  simple  illusions  or  mis- 
takes in  perception. 

We  noticed  that  all  our  direct  experiences  of  objects 
lack  strict  accuracy,  if  we  mean  by  accuracy  exact 
correspondence  with  fact  as  the  fact  is  otherwise  and 
more  fully  and  completely  determined  in  stored  past 
experiences.  A  part  is  taken  to  represent  a  whole, 
and  often  there  are  cases  where  we  take  our  interpreta- 
tion as  true  in  spite  of  the  facts  before  our  eyes.  Thus 
when  you  put  a  spoon  in  a  glass  full  of  water  the 
handle  of  the  spoon  will  appear  bent  at  the  point 
where  it  enters  the  water.  But  you  do  not  allow  this 
fact  to  deceive  you  as  to  the  straightness  of  the  handle. 


26  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

since  your  previous  experiences  of  this  situation  enable 
you  to  make  the  necessary  corrections.  That  is,  you 
do  not  "believe  your  own  eyes"  in  this  case  because 
you  know  from  previous  instances  of  spoons  in  water 
that  the  handle  is  straight  when  taken  out  of  the 
water.  You  check  up  one  experience  by  referring  it 
to  other  similar  experiences,  and  when  you  fail  to 
refer  them  to  similar  experiences  you  will  call  the 
object  by  the  wrong  name. 

Some  element  of  mistake  like  this  is  to  be  found 
in  all  perceptual  experience,  and  it  is  just  this  element 
of  "mistake"  that  makes  the  continuity  of  experiences 
real  in  a  whole  of  life  of  the  mind.  The  fact  therefore 
has  very  important  logical  consequences  which  it  would 
be  out  of  place  to  go  into  here.  But  the  fact  that  we 
do  not  get  complete  truth  from  the  senses  by  them- 
selves was  noticed  by  the  Greek  philosophers  many 
centuries  ago,  and  it  has  been  one  of  the  largest  ele- 
ments in  the  development  of  perhaps  all  religion  with 
its  disdain  of  "this"  world  and  its  faith  and  hope  in 
"another"  world.  But  this  religious  development  has 
little  relation  to  logic  and  truth,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  we  have  here  an  interesting  instance  of  the  fact 
that  truth  is  often  derived  from  mistaken  and  incom- 
plete and  even  false  experiences,  and  it  would  appear 
if  we  should  go  into  the  study  of  philosophy  that  all 
the  experiences  that  we  call  good  or  valuable  rest  in 
the  end  upon  the  correction  of  the  incompleteness  of 
our  everyday  immediate  experiences. 

There  are,  however,  more  striking  and  more  inter- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  27 

csting  cases  of  illusion  than  that  just  described,  and 
many  also  that  are  still  more  instructive.  You  know 
that  the  same  object  will  look  much  smaller  when 
held  near  a  similarly  shaped  larger  object  than  it  does 
when  held  near  a  similar  object  that  is  much  smaller 
than  itself.  Place  a  quarter  near  a  silver  dollar.  Now 
a  short  distance  away  place  another  quarter  near  a 
silver  dime.  Observe  the  two  quarters  and  see  if  they 
appear  to  be  the  same  size.  You  may  have  difficulty 
in  seeing  the  illusion  just  because  of  the  character  of 
perception  we  have  already  mentioned,  i.  e.,  that  your 
previous  experience  will  tell  you  in  advance  of  your 
seeing  the  quarters  at  all  that  all  quarters  are  of  the 
same  size.  But  if  you  will  draw  circles  with  the  coins 
in  the  arrangement  given  you  probably  cannot  see  the 
circles  representing  the  quarters  as  the  same  size.  This 
shows  clearly  that  our  perception  of  any  fact  is  modi- 
fied by  the  whole  set  of  facts  within  which  it  occurs, 
and  it  is  this  relation  of  reference  of  one  aspect  to 
another  that  accounts  for  our  seeing  sets  of  circum- 
stances as  wholes  to  which,  as  we  have  noticed,  we 
give  the  names  of  the  common  objects  of  experience. 
Perception  is  then  the  beginning  of  all  the  order  or 
organization  of  the  facts  of  life  into  usable  groups, 
and  we  shall  see  later  that  the  experience  we  call  infer- 
ence is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  same  tendency 
to  order  when  it  is  working  with  experiences  which  have 
already  been  refined  in  perception  and  memory.  In 
fact  there  is  nowhere  in  the  knowing  or  cognitive  expe- 
rience any  further  new  quality  than  this  act  of  the 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

mind  which  interprets  facts  in  perception.  All  other 
knowledge  functions  are  refinements  of  this  simple 
function. 

This  trait  of  perception  also  explains  many  and  per- 
haps all  of  the  extraordinary  experiences  of  "ghosts" 
and  "spirits"  which  have  played  so  important  a  part 
in  the  history  of  human  culture.  The  perceptive  func- 
tion and  its  peculiar  nature  can  be  recognized  easily  in 
the  story  told  the  author  once  by  a  rather  intelligent 
young  man  who  lived  in  the  country.  The  young  man 
had  been  accustomed  to  call  on  a  friend,  a  girl  of 
unusual  attractiveness  who  was  also  very  much  inter- 
ested in  religion.  On  this  particular  occasion  the  girl 
talked  much  of  the  beautiful  character  which  religion 
produces  in  human  beings,  so  that  she  had  herself 
become  identified  in  the  young  man's  mind  with  the 
character  created  by  religion.  On  this  evening  the 
conversation  turned  upon  the  question  of  the  beauty 
of  the  Christian  character  as  against  the  mere  physical 
beauty  of  the  "good  looking"  person.  The  girl  grows 
eloquent  in  her  portrayal  of  her  ideal  of  spiritual 
beauty  as  they  sat  in  the  silver  moonlight  which  falls 
in  such  soft  splendor  upon  a  country  home.  Natu- 
rally the  young  man  stayed  until  late  in  the  night. 
On  his  way  home  he  must  pass  through  a  long  stretch 
of  country  road  which  was  heavily  wooded  on  both 
sides,  the  trees  sending  their  long  arms  out  over  the 
road  as  if  to  meet  in  friendly  handclasp  when  the  day 
was  bright,  but  as  if  holding  an  ominous  black  pall 
of  destiny  over  the  passer-by  when  the  night  was  dark. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  29 

On  this  occasion  the  moon  with  the  cool  brilliance  of 
an  early  autumn  night  burst  through  the  rifts  in  the 
passing  clouds,  and  then  disappeared  alternately  be- 
hind a  cloud  mass.  Our  hero  relaxed  in  his  buggy  seat 
and  became  sleepy.  But  he  knew  that  he  must  remain 
awake  to  direct  his  horse,  and  upon  casting  his  eyes 
up  along  the  road  he  suddenly  saw  hanging  there  in 
the  trees  the  form  of  an  angel  more  perfect  than 
nature  or  art  could  ever  produce.  What  was  more 
mysterious  was  that  the  form  moved  its  body  with 
exquisite  grace  and  harmony,  and  its  fluffy  splendor 
of  wings  and  its  delicately  shapely  arms  were  beckon- 
ing to  him.  He  could  even  see  the  cherubic  pinkish 
tinge  of  a  smile  on  its  face.  His  first  reaction  was 
one  of  fear  and  the  impulse  to  drive  hastily  away. 
But  curiosity  conquered  fear  and  he  stopped  his  horse. 
As  he  stopped  he  noticed  that  the  form  became  less 
perfect,  so  he  alighted  and  walked  a  few  steps  back 
up  the  road.  The  fulness  of  beauty  returned  to  the 
form  and  it  smiled  and  beckoned  to  him  with  all  the 
warmth  of  sainted  loveliness.  He  walked  forward 
again  and  the  form  faded  and  dimmed  down  to  the 
dusky  shimmer  of  a  bar  of  moonlight  which  had  all 
the  time  been  falling  upon  him  through  an  irregular 
opening  between  the  branches  above  and  which  was 
now  obscured  by  a  passing  cloud. 

What  he  had  actually  seen  then  was  the  moonlit 
sky  as  it  was  formed  into  more  or  less  similarity  to 
the  human  form  by  the  opening  among  the  branches. 
The  graceful  moving  and  swaying  of  the  form  resulted 


30  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

from  the  wind  slightly  moving  the  hanging  branches. 
But  it  would  be  difficult  to  explain  the  smile  by  any 
mere  fact  in  the  situation;  it  was  clearly  made  by  the 
mind  of  the  young  man  out  of  the  actual  smile  which 
he  had  felt  a  short  time  before.  It  is  clear,  of  course, 
that  the  "ghost"  was  the  idealized  girl  as  she  nestled 
so  warmly  in  his  sleepy  mind. 

Thus  does  the  active  mind  build  out  the  common- 
place facts  of  perception  until  it  creates  out  of  them, 
together  with  elements  of  its  own  substance,  the  rare 
and  fine  structures  of  the  life  of  values.  But  our  ref- 
erence to  the  finer  value  aspects  of  experience  is  merely 
intended  to  show  the  general  tendency  of  the  mind  to 
supplement  the  sense  facts,  it  being  most  easily  shown 
here  because  these  experiences  are  common  to  all  and 
are  most  generally  understood.  It  is  equally  possible 
to  show  the  form  of  perception  in  some  of  life's  uglier 
and  less  attractive  places,  although  such  places  are 
useful  in  the  very  portent  of  disease  and  decay  which 
they  carry.  A  good  instance  of  the  perceptual  inter- 
pretation of  the  crude  facts  that  appear  is  to  be  found 
in  the  sombre  coarseness  of  the  drunken  mind.  In 
the  typical  case  of  ujim-jams"  the  "snakes"  which 
the  unfortunate  victim  sees  are,  we  are  told,  the 
swollen  blood  vessels  of  the  eye  as  the  perverted  mind 
builds  them  out  with  materials  taken  from  an  experi- 
ence coarsened  by  fear.  The  sense  cue  then  is  the 
squirming  form  of  the  blood  vessels  which  ordinarily 
are  not  seen  at  all,  but  which  now  become  visible 
because  distended  by  the  blood  pumped  into  them  by 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  31 

an  over-stimulated  heart.  And  a  mind  abused  and 
weakened  by  debauchery  finds  itself  stocked  with  the 
grotesque  horrendous  forms  of  ideas  made  unbeautiful 
by  the  foul  purposes  of  excess.  You  can  if  you  like 
enjoy  the  "snakes"  as  pleasing  aspects  of  experience 
and  as  built  out  by  whatever  beautiful  imaginary 
forms  you  may  care  to  invest  them  with.  Lie  down 
on  your  back  some  summer  day  and  gaze  absently  into 
the  sky,  and  they  will  appear  as  the  tortuous  forms 
of  any  type  of  art  object  you  may  find  yourself  inter- 
ested in,  and  they  will  move  either  with  the  lingering 
gait  that  is  not  distinguishable  from  stillness  or  with 
the  darting  speed  that  makes  them  invisible. 

Perception,  then,  is  the  general  fact  of  attentive 
experience  which  we  described  as  the  act  of  unifying 
the  immediate  details  of  fact  into  meaningful  forms. 
This  meaningfulness,  we  have  seen,  implies  the  uni- 
versal fact  of  communication  and  all  the  objective 
works  of  truth  and  art  which  communication  creates. 
It  is  thus  the  parent  of  beautiful  forms  in  art,  religion, 
and  morality,  as  well  as  of  the  useful  and  agreeable 
in  what  is  commonly  called  the  practical  life,  but  what 
is  properly  called  the  material  life.  The  one  is  the 
sphere  of  action  and  creation  in  the  real  sense  which 
we  shall  describe  as  imagination  later  (Part  V) ;  the 
other  the  realm  of  mere  movement  and  manufacture 
as  exemplified  in  industry  (Part  VI).  And  in  these 
examples  we  have  seen  the  elements  that  are  common 
to  every  perception;  namely,  a  sensory  cue  which  rep- 
resents the  vague  indefmiteness  of  fact,  and  the  whip- 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

ping  into  shapeliness  of  this  bald  fact  by  the  gathering 
around  it  of  the  polished  forms  of  past  experience. 
All  the  rest  of  our  account  of  perception  (Ch.  IV, 
Feeling,  and  Ch.  V,  Sensation)  will  be  a  further  and 
more  concretely  detailed  description  of  these  facts. 
We  shall  call  the  crude  element  of  fact,  the  simple 
conscious  contact  of  the  external  object  with  the  sensi- 
tive organism — this  fact  we  shall  call  sensation,  and 
its  description  will  follow  immediately  after  the  de- 
scription of  feeling.  The  other  fact,  the  shaping  of 
sensations  into  meanings,  will  occupy  our  attention 
all  through  the  discussion  of  cognitive  functions,  but 
it  will  get  clearest  formulation  in  the  discussion  of 
inference  as  the  peculiar  genius  of  imagination.  An- 
other immediate  aspect  of  perception  we  must  now 
describe. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

I.      FEELING  AS  PERCEPTIVE  ATTENTION. 

If  in  our  description  of  the  life  of  the  mind  we 
undertake  to  begin  with  the  simplest  of  its  activities 
and  manifestations,  we  shall  find  that  we  cannot  at  all 
be  certain  as  to  just  which  of  our  experiences  should 
be  regarded  as  simplest.  Perhaps  the  fact  is  that 
none  of  them  are  simple  at  all  in  the  ordinary  sense, 
and  if  this  should  turn  out  to  be  true  the  search  for 
the  simplest  will  not  be  very  profitable.  All  our  expe- 
riences, we  may  find,  are  so  intertwined  with  each 
other  as  the  web  of  life  is  spun  out  for  us  that  what 
seems  to  us  before  we  examine  it  a  more  or  less  con- 
sistent and  beautiful  pattern  may  turn  out  to  be  a 
most  hopeless  and  inextricable  maze.  It  is,  however, 
a  common  feeling  that  many  things,  as  they  come  to 
us  without  any  effort  on  our  part  and  when  we  arc 
willing  to  allow  them  to  be  for  us  just  what  they 
are,  have  no  confused  multiplicity  of  parts  and  there- 
fore do  not  call  upon  us  to  take  our  mind  to  pieces 
in  order  to  correspond  to  the  parts  it  is  supposed  to 
have. 

The  experts,  however,  tell  us  that  things  as  they 
come  to  us  are  not  real,  and  become  real  only  when 
we,  through  the  analytic  processes  of  our  minds,  have 
broken  them  up  and  have  catalogued  their  parts  and 
then  stuck  them   back   together  again.     To  see   and 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

appreciate  a  rose  as  it  glories  on  its  stem  in  the  garden 

is,  on  this  view,  not  to  ■"know"  it:  you  only  know  a 
rose  when  you  cut  it  from  its  parent  bush  and  with  a 
microscope  and  a  butcher  shop  of  horrid  tools  sepa- 
rate all  its  members  from  each  other  and  give  them 
names  for  which  nobody  in  this  world  would  care. 
Now  it  may  be  necessary  thus  to  mangle  and  shatter 
the  rose  if  we  are  interested  to  study  the  life  habits 
of  the  lice  which  sometimes  infest  it,  or  if  we  wish 
to  "control"  the  "louse-evil";  .but  we  should  remem- 
ber that  shredding  roses  and  catching  lice  is  "science1' 
and  not  knowledge.  The  fact  is.  the  fact  as  we  know 
it.  that  the  rose  comes  into  our  life  not  because  it 
has  parts  or  with  the  slightest  suspicion  in  our  mind- 
that  parts  are  necessary  to  it.  but  just  as  a  rose;  just 
as  the  warm  flash  of  beauty  around  which  for  the  time 
being  our  world  collects  itself  in  order  to  give  em- 
phasis to  its  wholeness  and  to  make  that  wholeness 
evident  to  us  as  law. 

So  the  obvious  fact  is  that  we  do  not  have  any 
simple  experiences,  and  that  there  is  no  element  of  our 
mind-life  which  can  be  made  to  stand  forth  as  real 
except  as  its  very  being  connects  it  with  other  experi- 
ences which  must  be  present  there.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  any  description  of  the  mind-life  must 
necessarily  lack  that  definiteness  which  the  so-called 
science  of  the  mind  tries  to  impose  upon  it,  and  it 
is  for  the  same  reason  that  "psychology"  has  become 
either  on  the  one  hand  physiology  or  on  the  other  a 
sort    of    natural    historv    of    the    movements    of    the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  35 

organism  which  as  a  whole  the  experts  call  behavior. 
If  facts  must  be  finally  simple,  and  if  they  must  be 
such  as  maintain  the  deadly  calm  and  fixity  which 
"scientific  accuracy"  and  definiteness  require,  then 
they  have  two  chances  at  being  real;  they  must  in 
general  be  either  matter  or  motion,  and  conscious  facts 
must  be  either  organism  or  behavior.  But  if  we  desire 
a  knowledge  of  mind  we  shall  have  to  go  beyond  the 
confines  of  scientific  method  where  we  shall  not  be 
obliged  to  restrict  our  thought  by  this  particular  kind 
of  accuracy  and  definiteness,  but  may  strive  for  ade- 
quacy and  wholeness  and  the  fulness  of  being,  unde- 
fined and  unlimited  by  the  hard  lines  that  abstract 
mathematics  draws  as  a  dead-line  beyond  which  spirit 
may  not  transgress;  we  may  ignore  the  dissecting 
process  of  analysis  which,  in  its  blood-thirsty  rage 
for  divisible  and  carvable  facts,  must  have  mere  dead 
body  as  its  final  object  and  end.  We  shall  not  there- 
fore feel  bound  by  the  "laws  of  science,"  consequently 
we  shall  be  free  to  be  honest  with  such  phases  of 
reality  as  we  may  be  able  to  find  in  those  aspects  of 
our  world  which  we  call  experience,  and  we  shall  not 
be  disturbed  by  any  questions  or  doubts  as  to  what 
our  motives  are,  whether  science  or  truth  or,  so  far  as 
we  are  consciously  concerned,  neither  of  them. 

All  of  our  experiences  are  then  complex,  and  de- 
scriptions  of  them  are  descriptions  of  total  aspects 
of  masses  or  groups  of  them.  No  descriptive  state- 
ment is  therefore  final,  since  the  mind-life  must  be 
perceived  in  its  wholeness  and  integrity.     And,  since 


36  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

it  cannot  be  perceived  through  its  parts  one  after  an- 
other; and  if  we  are  to  call  this  mode  of  perception 
by  the  analytic  process  of  breaking  to  pieces  sensa- 
tion, then  our  real  world  is  not  known  most  directly  in 
sensation,  but  in  feeling. 

But  this  need  not  mean  on  that  account  that  feel- 
ing, because  it  is  the  most  direct  mode  of  contact  with 
our  world,  is  also  the  one  upon  which  we  must  place 
highest  value.'  What  it  does  mean,  and  the  least  and 
most  that  it  means,  is  that  all  other  forms  of  experi- 
ence must  take  account  of  their  relation  to  feeling  as 
the  psychological  condition  of  their  being  validly  true. 
Ordinarily  we  assume  validity  to  refer  ultimately  to 
sensation  as  the  ideal  of  definiteness  in  truth  relations, 
and  we  assume  that  sensation,  as  against  feeling,  must 
be  the  ground  of  validity,  since  it  is  definite  and  pre- 
cise, whereas  feeling  is  supposed  to  be  unstable  and 
precarious  and  vague.  But  if  by  definiteness  we  mean, 
as  we  seem  to  mean,  that  a  reality  must  have  self- 
completeness  as  emphatic  quality,  and  distinctness 
of  outline  as  against  surrounding  realities,  then  noth- 
ing can  be  more  indefinite  than  sensation  nor  more 
definite  than  feeling.  But  this  means  that  feeling  is 
more  primordial  and  elementary  as  a  factor  in  percep- 
tion than  is  sensation,  and  that  perception  is  itself, 
as  the  original  self-conscious  aspect  of  mind,  what  it 
is  just  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  it  is  the  essential 
unity  within  which  both  sensation  and  feeling  are 
distinguishable  parts. 

But  perception  is  the  first  and  most  elementary  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  37 

self-conscious  processes  just  because  it  is  the  original 
realization  or  discovery  of  the  difference  between  feel- 
ing and  sensation;  the  definition  and  self-identifica- 
tion of  sensation  within  the  original  ; sub-perceptual 
process  is  the  beginning  of  mind  as  rational,  and  its 
progressive  growth  stages  as  successive  determinations 
of  feeling  considered  as  content  within  the  sensory  as 
form,  have  constituted  the  life  history  of  the  "reason." 
This  is  what  is  meant  by  ethical  theories  which  de- 
scribe reason  as  the  function  of  "control"  of  "desires," 
but  it  neglects  the  fact  that  reason  is  nothing  else  than 
the  definition  within  the  sense-feeling  nebula  of  a  con- 
creteness  of  reference  to  one  of  its  own  aspects.  The 
doctrine  of  the  irrationality  of  feeling,  which  in  some 
form  is  the  conviction  of  almost  everybody  that  under- 
takes to  deal  with  human  nature,  is  then  just  the 
denial,  on  the  part  of  the  reason  and  in  its  own  behalf, 
of  the  content  on  a  basis  of  which  alone  it  can  have 
meaning  or  comprehend  value. 

So  much  by  way  of  a  justification  of  feeling,  which 
we  have  been  obliged  to  do  in  the  benefit  of  the  experts 
and  scientists,  since  to  nobody  else  would  it  ever  have 
occurred  to  doubt  the  reality  of  feeling  as  an  original 
and  immediate  aspect  of  perceptive  experience. 

What  we  have  now  to  do  is  to  describe  feeling  in 
some  of  its  capacities  as  original  and  primitive  fact. 
And,  since  there  is  no  other  thing  in  the  universe  like 
it  or  in  the  same  class  with  it,  all  that  we  can  do  is  to 
find  and  state  as  best  we  can  some  instances  of  it  as 
illustrations.     We  have  to  begin  with  what  we  know 


3$  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

in  and  by  and  for  itself  in  order  to  construct  our  sys- 
tems of  knowledge,  and  what  we  know  for  itself  best 
is  what  appears  to  us  in  the  aspect  of  not  simple  but 
whole  and  undifferentiated  feeling. 

It  would  be  futile  to  undertake  a  definition  of  feel- 
ing, but  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  may  not  know  it 
may  be  suggested  that  the  attributes  of  feeling  are 
probably  quality  and  persistence.  This  latter  is  not 
duration,  but  a  persistence  that  is  cumulative.  Feel- 
ings do  not  perhaps  differ  from  each  other  in  intensity, 
but  only  in  cumulative  persistence  which,  as  fully 
conscious  and  metorganic,  becomes  pervasive.  But 
this  pervasiveness  itself  may  very  well  be  an  aspect 
of  quality,  and,  if  so,  it  means  that  feelings  have  no 
quantitative  nature  at  all. 

It  is  the  usual  thing  to  say  that  when  I  see  a  rose 
what  actually  happens  is  that  in  some  cold-blooded 
way  I  apprehend  its  qualities  through  the  sense  of 
sight,  and  that  my  knowing  the  rose  is  nothing  more 
than  a  coming  to  awareness  of  these  qualities  through 
my  sense  organs  and  nervous  system.  But  the  queer 
thing  about  it  is  that  as  an  ordinary  mortal  and  as 
yet  uninstructed  in  physiology,  and  psychologically 
innocent,  but  having  a  mind,  I  know  nothing  at  all 
of  sense  organs  or  nervous  systems;  I  know  nothing 
about  the  distinction  between  various  types  of  quali- 
ties; yet  I  am  as  fully  aware  of  the  rose  as  anyone 
whose  knowledge  of  these  physiological  and  scientific 
matters  is  complete.  Knowing  the  rose  then  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  such  matters;  and  while  it  may  demon- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  39 

strate  the  wisdom  or  sophistication  of  somebody  else 
when  he  sagely  informs  me  of  all  these  things,  yet  his 
lecturing  me  on  physiology  never  makes  any  contact 
with  my  experience  of  knowing  the  rose.  I  know  as 
much  about  the  rose  before  his  instruction  as  after 
it,  although  my  knowledge  of  physiology  may  have 
been  improved  in  the  process.  But  even  in  that  case, 
the  rose  as  meaning  something  to  me,  has  gone  com- 
pletely out  of  my  life,  and  the  place  it  occupied  so 
comfortably  in  my  interest  has  been  rudely  taken  by 
all  the  stuff  about  nerves  and  sense-organs;  and  in- 
stead of  the  familiar  comradeship  which  the  rose 
means  to  me  without  any  superfluous  explanations,  1 
am  asked  to  accept  a  batch  of  highly  questionable 
promulgations  about  causes.  But  I  suppose  our  scien- 
tist must  be  allowed  to  keep  his  mind  "open,"  and  to 
continue  to  think  with  his  hands.  The  rose  is  not  a 
cause,  and  all  the  causes  in  the  world  cannot  atone 
for  the  loss  of  the  rose  from  the  intimacy  which  at 
the  moment  makes  so  large  a  part  of  my  life.  As  well 
take  my  wife  away,  and  then  tell  me  I  have  the  dress- 
maker's form  over  which  she  fits  her  clothes. 

It  is  the  failure  to  recognize  that  there  are  some 
realities  that  are  to  me  complete  before  any  sensory 
experiences  as  describable  qualities  enter  my  mind  at 
all  that  makes  all  the  trouble.  There  is  a  whole  world 
of  experience  that  is  not  yet  sensory,  and  which  carries 
no  immediate  suggestions  whatever  of  sense,  so  far 
as  the  actual  inwardness  of  its  reality  to  me  is  con- 
cerned. And  this  inwardness  of  reality  to  me  is  exactly 


40  THE  LIFE  OF  .MIND 

what  we  mean  by  mind  and  consciousness,  otherwise 
we  are  lost  in  an  intricate  maze  of  explanations  that 
explain  nothing. 

Before  I  know  that  the  rose  is  red  or  large  or  sweet 
or  that  it  is  composed  of  petals,  etc.,  or  has  green 
leaves  and  thorns — what  do  I,  except  as  a  scientist, 
care  for  all  this,  anyhow?  All  I  know  or  care  to  know 
is  the  rose,  and  that  in  knowing  it  my  universe  is 
for  that  moment  complete  and  centered  so  near  the 
seat  of  my  life  that  there  can  be  no  mere  facts  for 
me.  And  in  proportion  as  the  rude  explainer  intrudes 
with  his  abominable  causes,  and  by  dint  and  din  of 
explanation  breaks  the  privacy  of  my  realization,  to 
that  degree  the  rose  is  lost  to  me,  and  the  universe 
begins  to  show  dark  rifts  of  fear  and  the  crude  and 
ugly  imperfections  of  unreal  things.  Even  the  rose 
lapses  in  its  rosiness,  and  its  frail  beauty  mingles  with 
the  dirt  of  its  origin  in  the  soil.  But  the  destroyer 
of  truth  must  have  his  abstraction;  our  world  must 
be  "explained"  though  the  heavens  fall. 

Then,  in  the  direct  and  immediate  contact  with  the 
world,  life  is  realized  before  sensations  as  describable 
facts  begin,  and  all  life's  values  are  built  solidly  into 
the  structure  of  what  is  real  long  before  there  are  as 
yet  either  nerves  or  sensations  as  features  of  our 
knowledge.  The  rose  appears  to  me  as  a  rose,  a  point 
at  which  the  truth  and  beauty  of  my  wrorld  converge 
even  before  the  questions  arise  that  call  for  explana- 
tions. If  I  must  rend  asunder  the  rose-reality  in  order 
to  explain  just  what  part  in  the  situation  is  played 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  41 

by  mind,  the  best  I  can  do  is  to  say  that  in  mind  the 
rose  situation  is  the  projected  end  of  an  attitude.  And 
if  you  demand  the  life  history  of  the  attitude  as  its 
explanation,  all  that  can  be  done,  after  warning  you 
that  explanations  here  never  explain,  is  to  say  that 
attitudes  grow  up  within  the  free  universe  where  there 
are  at  the  same  time  many  other  things  of  great 
variety.  Among  these  other  things  are  sensation  quali- 
ties—which also  as  such  have  nothing  to  do  with 
nerves  or  sense  organs — but  these  sensation  qualities 
are  no  more  closely  related  to  the  feelings  than  are 
a  lot  of  other  things,  consequently  they  do  not  any 
more  constitute  an  explanation  of  feeling  affections 
than  do  any  of  the  other  things.  Sensation  qualities 
are  not  convertible  into  feelings,  nor  feelings  into 
sensation  qualities;  so  you  can't  mean  one  of  them 
when  you  are  talking  about  the  other;  and  you  can't 
account  for  feelings  by  making  them  a  by-product  of 
sensations.  The  feelings  are  there  as  objective  mean- 
ings in  consciousness  before  sensations  are  known  to 
exist;  and  our  knowledge  of  our  world  is  of  great 
extent  and  importance  before  the  sensory  aspect  of 
it  is  discovered  to  the  consciousness  at  all. 

What  we  wish  to  say  about  feeling,  what  seems  to 
be  most  important  in  our  knowledge  of  it,  can  be 
summed  up  therefore  in  a  few  simple  statements. 

In  the  first  place,  feeling  is  of  more  primary  and 
original  importance  than  many  other  forms  of  experi- 
ence. It  controlled  our  life  and  action,  kept  us  out 
of  danger  and  led  us  toward  things  that  were  useful 


42  HIE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

and  pleasant  to  us  long  before  we  could  single  out  the 
sense  factors  from  the  other  elements  of  mind.  In 
the  simple  forms  of  pleasure  and  pain  it  to  a  great 
extent  determines  what  we  even  now  shall  do  in  our 
practical  lives,  and  to  an  equally  great  extent  deter- 
mines what  we  shall  think.  By  far  the  larger  majority 
of  people  go  about  their  daily  tasks  without  troubling 
their  thought  about  them,  they  take  their  work  and 
recreation  and  entertainment  and  amusement  primarily 
from  the  course  which  their  feelings  of  pleasure  and 
pain  dictate  to  them,  and  with  the  vast  majority  of 
people  pleasure  and  pain  not  only  make  up  for  them 
the  ordinary  plans  of  their  lives,  but  also  form  their 
ideals.  When  we  think  of  our  tasks  for  the  coming 
week  most  of  our  interest  lies  in  finding  some  way  to 
get  the  tasks  off  our  hands  as  quickly  and  as  easily 
as  possible,  and  in  trying  to  fix  up  some  interesting 
ways  to  spend  the  time  after  the  tasks  are  done.  It 
is  not  here  argued  that  there  is  anything  wrong  about 
this:  the  "gospel  of  work''  sometimes  neglects  the  fact 
that  most  men.  even  the  most  successful  and  pros- 
perous and  perhaps  also  the  most  intelligent,  plan 
their  work  with  reference  to  having  some  leisure  time 
in  which  they  can  go  hunting  or  read  a  book  or  go  to 
the  show,  or  to  work  out  something  that  stimulates 
their  imagination.  It  is  from  this  free  time  that  most 
real  production  comes;  what  we  want  to  emphasize  is 
that  all  these  effects  are  generally  the  results  of  men 
being  controlled  by  their  simple  feelings.  We  "follow 
our  nose/'  as  we  say,  even  in  some  of  the  most  impor- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  43 

tant  connections,  and  thus  have  our  time  and  capaci- 
ties free  to  go  about  the  interesting  and  useful  new 
discoveries  which  all  of  us  have  to  make  in  our  own 
lives.  Thus  do  the  simple  feelings  take  charge  of  our 
automatic  life,  and  thus  control  us  through  a  greater 
part  of  the  time. 

Secondly,  feelings  are  not  only  of  great  practical 
importance,  but  they  probably  arise  first  in  the  course  I 
of  the  development  of  the  life  of  mind.  They  are 
always  prominent  in  the  lives  of  the  lower  animals, 
and  many  low  forms  are  perhaps  completely  at  the 
mercy  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Their  lives  are  nothing 
more  than  a  continuous  process  of  dodging  things 
that  are  harmful  and  give  pain,  and  of  chasing  after 
the  things  which  give  pleasure,  in  the  case  of  the 
lower  forms,  mainly  foods.  Thus  does  a  single-celled 
animal  zigzag  its  way  through  his  world,  guided  in 
his  movements  by  pleasure-pain,  and  always  at  the 
mercy  of  everything  in  his  environment  since  he  can 
expect  and  anticipate  nothing.  He  can  make  no  plans 
in  advance  of  the  appearance  of  his  deadliest  enemy. 
Something  almost  like  this  is  true  of  many  men;  hence 
the  great  practical  importance  of  a  knowledge  of  feel- 
ing in  the  life  of  mind.  But  the  important  thing  to 
know  is  that  feeling  operates  in  the  life  of  mind  as 
active  before  sensation  can  deliver  its  accounts  of  the 
character  of  our  world.  Often  before  we  see  that  an 
object  is  red  we  must  dodge  it;  it  is  of  more  impor- 
tance to  know  first  that  a  brick  is  sometimes  danger- 
ous;  later  we  can  find  out  about  its  color.     And  the 


Z 


3 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

experience  of  the  danger  of  the  brick  is  primarily  a 
matter  of  feeling,  which  must  move  us  before  sensa- 
tion has  time  to  report  on  its  color.  The  feeling  acts 
"right  now,''  while  the  sensation  report  is  more  or 
less  leisurely;  in  fact,  the  sensation  report  is  often 
postponed  for  considerable  stretches  of  time.  The 
color  of  the  rattlesnake  does  not  come  into  my  mind 
first  upon  my  seeing  him;  the  fact  is  I  have  turned 
my  heels  and  am  out  of  danger,  or  hope  to  be,  by 
the  time  his  colors  begin  to  dawn  on  my  mind.  I 
perhaps  strike  or  run  first  (James),  then  feel  fear  of 
him,  and  the  sensation  of  color  turns  up  in  my  con- 
sciousness a  poor  third.  Feeling  and  action  are  then 
the  original  experiences,  and  the  sensations  which  lay 
the  foundation  of  our  knowledge  systems  are  develop- 
ments out  of  undefined  feeling,  are  modifications  of 
feelings  for  highly  specialized  purposes,  and  appear 
along  with  the  more  complex  processes  of  abstract 
u  thought1'  and  the  higher  forms  of  planned  or  antici- 
pated experiences,  when  in  the  course  of  evolution 
mind  faces  the  task  of  taking  deliberate  charge  of 
the  course  of  its  own  life. 

As  a  third  consideration,  feelings,  in  some  of  their 
peculiar  forms,  have  not  only  no  particular  names, 
but  also  do  not  have  any  particular  or  specifiable 
/  quality.  They  are  certainly  not  all  either  pleasures 
or  pains:  besides,  even  if  they  were  all  either  pleas- 
ures or  pains,  these  experiences  have  sometimes  no 
definitely  assignable  quality,  for  pleasures  and  pains 
as   feelings  are  often  interchangeable,  many  of  them 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  45 

can  equally  well  be  called  either  pain  or  pleasure,  and 
there  are  some  that  are  neither  pain  nor  pleasure,  and 
some  that  are  both  at  once  even  after  analysis  has 
done  its  best.  In  fact,  things  can  have  names  and 
be  distinguishable  only  when  they  persist  or  "stay; 
put"  at  least  long  enough  or  are  the  kind  of  thing 
that  can  be  remembered,  and  none  of  these  characters 
can  with  any  assignable  sense  be  applied  to  feelings. 
They  do  not  persist  in  time  or  have  duration,  since 
each  instant  of  a  feeling,  in  so  far  as  it  is  pure  and 
unmixed  with  other  types  of  experience,  which  is  rare, 
is  an  eternity  in  itself  in  that  it  has  no  reference  to 
anything.  It  does  not  even  have  the  character  of 
self-reference — -if  it  had  it  would  be  an  idea — for 
that  is  the  character  that  distinguishes  ideas  from  all 
other  things.  Feelings  cannot  be  ascribed  positive 
existence,  for  what  has  existence  can  be  shown  to  be 
relevant  to  other  things,  and  what  has  relevance  has 
meaning  and  becomes  universal.  To  say  that  sensa- 
tions have  quality  means  that  they  exist  only  with 
feeling.  Feelings  do  not  have  any  qualities;  they  are 
qualities,  and  their  being  consists  in  their  being  felt. 
Only  sensations,  so  far  as  experiences  go,  have  quali- 
ties, in  that  their  existence  is  conditioned  upon  the 
presence  of  feeling,  and  to  attribute  quality  to  other 
forms  of  experience  is  to  confuse  quality  with  univer- 
sality, Universality,  not  quality,  belongs  to  perception, 
and  to  perception  alone  of  all  things  in  the  universe;  it 
is  this  that  makes  perception  the  characteristic  know- 
ing function.     This  is  the  reason  that  the  empirical 


46  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

philosophy  can  never  attain  real  universality,  and 
thus  cannot  arrive  at  truth;  it  concerns  itself  only 
with  qualities,  and  at  a  certain  point  abstract  quality, 
as  ended,  becomes  quantity,  or  assumes  the  inevitable- 
ness  of  the  abstractly  formal,  which  is  confused  with 
the  dependableness  of  the  universal. 

Proper  discussion  of  this  would  take  us  into  the 
field  of  theory  of  art.  But  feeling,  as  unmixed,  is  just 
what  it  is  and  unique,  is  more  primitive  than  sensa- 
tion, since  while  quality  is  the  essence  of  sensation, 
feeling  has  no  quality.  This  will  involve  the  begin- 
nings of  a  theory  of  art  when  we  raise  the  question  of 
the  place  of  feeling  in  the  systems  of  experience  which 
make  up  the  life  of  mind.  But  at  that  point  we  shall 
have  to  call  the  assumed  feeling  complexes  emotions. 
But  also  at  the  point  of  a  theory  of  art  it  will  clearly 
have  to  be  remembered  that  what  we  have  said  here 
precludes  the  complete  fusion  of  feeling  with  other 
experiences,  since  feelings  have  no  quality,  and  our 
concepts  of  art  will  have  to  be  formulated  with  refer- 
ence to  the  fact  that,  since  feeling  always  in  a  measure 
stands  off  to  itself,  the  quality  of  art  will  depend  upon 
the  immediate  experience  of  completeness  which,  be- 
cause of  the  relative  nature  of  the  thought  experience, 
is  suggested  appositively  by  the  actual  and  natural 
ofn>hness  of  feeling.  It  is  through  some  such  concep- 
tion a>  this  that  real  universality  in  art  is  achieved. 
Perhaps  diffen  nee,  which  has  such  tremendous  logical 
significance,  i-.  after  all.  an  aesthetic  concept,  and 
the  close  contact  which  it  enables  knowledge  in  logic 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  47 

through  the  idea  of  mediation  to  make  with  the  real 
may  possibly  itself  depend  upon  the  immediacy  of  the 
feeling  experience.  But  it  appears  clear  that  the  limi- 
tations of  mediacy,  which  are  primarily  a  matter  of 
continuity  and  process,  and  which  result  in  the  host 
of  difficulties  of  cause  as  a  scientific  and  epistemologi- 
cal  concept,  and  which  at  present  make  the  idea  of 
evolution  quite  irrational,  rest  upon  the  nature  of 
quality,  and  it  at  least  suggests  itself  that  the  imme- 
diacy of  feeling  may  be  apprehended  rationally 
through  the  idea  of  qualitylessness  as  the  meaning 
of  the  logical  concept  of  pure  difference.  The  fact 
that  such  matters  cannot  be  comprehended  by  psy- 
chology shows  how  far  short  psychology  falls  as  an  ac- 
count of  the  life  of  mind. 

These  are,  of  course,  extremely  difficult  matters: 
but  the  life  of  mind  would  not  be  important  if  it  were 
simple,  and  it  is  perhaps  the  place  to  show  the  tre- 
mendous significance  for  our  lives  of  a  great  many 
things  which  we  cannot  quite  clearly  understand,  but 
which  we  know  represent  large  aspects  of  the  truth. 

Many,  perhaps  all,  of  these  can  be  accounted  for 
en  our  theory  of  feeling,  and  we  may  state  them  best 
perhaps  by  considering  them  aspects  of  what  is  popu- 
larly called  mysticism.  Mystery  and  magic  must  be 
accepted  as  having  a  place  in  the  life  of  mind,  even 
in  the  minds  of  beings  of  the  very  highest  orders.  We 
must  see  what  this  aspect  of  mind  is  in  actual  experi- 
ence, since  all  of  us  accept  mystery  and  magic  of 
some  kind,  and  often  a  kind  that  is  quite  generally 


48  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

unintelligible. 

When  we  undertake  the  discussion  of  mystical  feel- 
ing as  a  valid  form  of  experience;  that  is,  valid  in 
the  literal  sense  as  giving  us  an  interpretative  value 
of  certain  aspects  of  the  life  of  mind,  it  is  to  be  under- 
stood at  the  outset  that  we  are  using  the  terms  feeling 
in  a  somewhat  different  sense  from  that  used  in  de- 
scribing feeling  as  an  original  form  of  experience. 
The  mystical  feeling  is  then  an  experience  in  which 
wc  get  what  we  believe  to  be  a  true  result  of  an  inter- 
pretation and  synthesis  of  large  masses  of  experience; 
in  which  neither  the  details  of  fact  which  make  up 
the  mass  nor  the  methods  by  which  an  interpretation 
of  them  is  achieved  is  clearly  envisaged  by  the  mind, 
nor  can  either  the  details  of  fact  or  the  method  be 
rendered  quite  indubitably  certain  to  the  conscious- 
ness. This,  of  course,  looks  like  saying  that  we  have 
knowledge  or  arrive  at  certainty  when  we  do  not  know 
what  it  is  that  we  know,  and  are  certain  when  we  do 
not  know  how  we  can  be  certain.  But  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  be  alarmed  or  ashamed  of  such 
a  result,  since  it  is  one  of  the  commonest  experiences 
to  have  a  ''groundless"  conviction,  and  until  our 
methods  of  knowledge  are  vastly  improved  over  what 
any  of  them  at  present  represents,  many  of  the  most 
important  actions  will  have  to  continue  to  follow  from 
such  uncertain  and  groundless  convictions.  Even  many 
of  the  most  invulnerable  propositions  in  logic  or  in 
mathematics  rest  upon  a  "Let  it  be  supposed  that — ," 
and   every   large   generalization    of    science   expresses 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  49 

some  degree  of  faith  where  we  cannot  see.  For  in- 
stance, it  is  not  at  present  humanly  possible  to  be 
aware  of  enough  data  to  account  for  the  full  meaning 
of  many  of  the  principles  of  evolution,  nor  is  it  pos- 
sible to  hold  in  mind  at  once  all  the  necessary  logical 
implications  of  method  to  guarantee  certainty  in  such 
connections. 

Yet  we  do  not  doubt.  There  is  a  solid  bridge  of 
truth  that  stretches  between  knowledge  and  faith  over 
the  waters  of  doubt,  and  the  end  of  the  bridge  which 
abuts  upon  faith  often  lies  under  a  clearer  light  of 
conviction  than  the  other.  So  when  I  feel  a  strong 
attraction  pulling  me  in  a  matter  involving  a  weighty 
choice,  although  I  can  state  no  facts  that  would  justify 
it  nor  any  reasons  which  would  prove  it  valid,  still  I 
proceed  by  the  same  conviction  of  truth  as  when  I 
can  lay  the  grounds  for  an  implicit  inference  or  can 
justify  my  conviction  by  reference  to  an  historical 
intuition.  It  is  not  therefore  unreasonable  to  expect 
that  when  logic  has  perfected  its  methods  the  convic- 
tion which  arises  from  feeling  and  that  arising  from 
intuition  will  cover  the  same  truth  as  is  manifested 
now  in  logical  method  only.  So  if  I  cannot  trust  my 
feelings  I  cannot  trust  my  "mind,"  for  there  is  in 
each  the  element  of  universality  which  calls  for  faith, 
for  at  many  critical  points  we  cannot  see  where  we 
have  to  live. 

But  in  accepting  the  mystical  feeling  as  a  source  of 
truth  we  do  not  condone  mystery  if  by  mystery  it  is 
implied   that    some    things   arc    beyond    the    reach    of 


50  THE  LIFE  OF  MINI) 

mind  altogether.  Nothing  lies  out  of  the  way  of  mind, 
and  whatever  is  real  is  knowable.  By  mysticism  then 
we  imply  the  resignation  that  is  due  in  the  presence 
of  the  real  to  those  elements  of  the  real  whose  exist- 
ence is  as  yet  merely  symbolized  to  us,  but  the  sym- 
bols for  which  we  take  as  the  guarantee  of  reality 
which  will  appear  fully  when  the  symbolism  is  real- 
ized as  such  in  mind.  But  this  is  not  different  essen- 
tially from  thought  and  its  validity.  And,  while  it  is 
true  that  the  conviction  which  rests  upon  feeling  is 
often,  perhaps  generally,  mistaken,  and,  to  use  the 
harsher  term,  false;  and  the  conviction  that  rests  upon 
intuition  equally  often  mistaken  and  oftener  tragic 
in  its  consequences;  and  while  the  practical  conse- 
quences in  either  case  are  generally  such  as  to  make 
human  life  in  the  world  appear  as  vain  and  unprofit- 
able with  respect  to  those  values  the  possession  of 
which  would  compensate  for  life's  inevitable  and  inex- 
orable loss; — how  much  surer  are  the  results  which 
follow  from  strict  scientific  research?  Armed  with  the 
"results  of  science"  we  reduce  murder  to  a  fine  art; 
we  justify  the  immolation  of  two-thirds  of  the  human 
race  upon  the  altar  of  the  other  third's  greed  and  lust ; 
we  divert  the  energies  of  the  intelligence  itself  to  the 
destruction  of  the  conditions  which  make  a  life  of 
intelligence  possible. 

The  very  worship  of  science  is  itself  a  case  of  magic, 
and  the  domineering  spirit  which  science  sometimes 
shows  to  the  ethical  aspects  of  experience  has  been 
responsible  for  the  same   kind   of  obscurantism   and 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  51 

stagnation  as  ever  followed  from  religious  intolerance 
in  its  most  violent  form. 

It  is  then  only  the  overconfidence  of  the  learned 
that  llouts  the  feelings.  We  can  consider  the  place 
of  feeling  in  experience  as  equally  justified  with 
science  so  long  as  "scientific  truth"  claims  to  depend 
upon  fact. 

We  need  therefore  only  to  refer  to  certain  types 
of  mysticism  to  illustrate  the  truth  of  our  account  of 
the  feelings  as  a  ground  of  true  interpretation. 

If  we  take  the  case  of  religion  we  shall  be  dealing 
with  at  least  the  most  powerful  if  not  the  most  refined 
and  delicate  of  human  feelings.  It  is  easy,  of  course, 
to  dash  the  whole  question  aside  in  contempt  as  a 
tissue  of  lies  and  deception  due  to  the  universal  igno- 
rance of  men.  But  it  would  be  equally  fair  and  as 
nearly  true  to  accept  the  whole  system  as  the  very 
last  word  of  truth  on  all  subjects.  Both  are,  of  course, 
utterly  false.  The  question  for  us  is  not  how  much  of 
religion  is  true;  that  question  might  not  be  worth 
answering;  but  how  much  of  the  truth  of  religion  is 
an  interpretation,  in  terms  of  feeling,  of  the  facts  of 
life.  Such  a  question  is  clearly  an  inquiry  as  to  how 
much  of  the  truth  of  religion  is  represented  in  the 
lives  of  its  devotees  by  ritual  and  liturgy,  by  form 
and  color  and  movement;  how  much  of  the  truth  is 
mediated  through  song  and  dance  and  gesture  and  the 
forms  of  bodily  movement  in  general,  instead  of 
through  the  more  labored  customary  medium  of  lan- 
guage and  logical  discourse, 

UNIVER3I 


52  the:  life  of  mind 

If,  naturally,  we  limit  the  terms  truth  to  such  de- 
liverances as  can  be  formulated  in  the  symbolism  of 
language  only,  then  other  forms  of  expression  are  to 
be  called  something  else.  And  it  is  argued  that  only 
forms  upon  which  we  can  agree  can  represent  truth; 
but  cannot  and  do  not  vastly  more  people  agree  on 
other  than  language  forms  than  upon  language  forms? 
But.it  is  the  agreement  among  the  competent — but 
this  begs  the  whole  question;  the  competent  are  those 
who  agree.  Or,  the  truth  is  a  matter  of  findings  by 
those  who  put  their  life  work  into  the  matter;  but 
why  should  work  and  continuity  of  interest  guarantee 
truth  to  those  who  grind  out  a  life  of  toil  and  find — 
illusion  and  unreality?  Or,  the  truth  is  what  all 
rational  beings  are  obliged  to  accept;  but  what  have 
all  rational  beings  accepted,  or  who  is  rational?  The 
majority  of  educated  men  today  accept  some  form  of 
symbolism  as  the  ground  of  the  truth  of  those  mat- 
ters which  they  think  concern  their  souls — a  sym- 
bolism which  they  do  not  ever  attempt  to  justify  on 
grounds  of  strict  logic.  And  even  "strict  logic"  in 
the  last  resort  is  a  matter  for  the  most  part  of  an 
elaborate  symbolism,  even  the  concrete  logic  which 
deals  directly  with  the  reality  itself  is  a  symbolism, 
an  inescapable  symbolism,  it  is  true,  but  still  a  sym- 
bolism. And  it,  even,  may  be  inescapable  just  because 
of  its  hold  upon  your  feelings  rather  than  upon  your 
"mind." 

The  fact  is  that  the  most  significant  systems  of 
ends  ever  proposed  as  the  ideal  of  accomplishment  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  53 

human  action  have  been  created  and  given  their  com- 
pulsive power  by  feeling,  and  feeling  has  invented  the 
forms  of  action  through  which  alone  their  accomplish- 
ment seems  possible.  The  ideal  of  a  " Kingdom  of 
God"  or  of  a  perfect  state,  even  the  utter  endlessness 
of  Nirvana,  the  complete  feelinglessness  of  final  anni- 
hilation, all  have  been  forged  in  and  through  the  white 
heat  of  feeling  on  the  anvil  of  despair  with  respect 
to  the  possibilities  of  the  facts  of  this  world.  So  that 
as  an  interpretation  of  fact  which  can  obtain  human 
acceptance  and  approval,  it  would  seem  that  the  con- 
vincingness of  truth  is  the  persausiveness  of  feeling, 
and  that  the  facts  that  we  accept  as  real  are  those 
which  enforce  their  claim  upon  us  either  through  the 
warning  threat  or  the  beckoning  of  hope — feelings. 
Ideas  are  essentially  satisfying  and  quiescent;  they 
indicate  possession  and  the  peace  of  quietude.  It  is 
only  when  an  idea  glows  with  the  warmth  of  feeling 
that  it  fires  us  to  the  pitch  of  action;  and  it  is  only 
in  the  heat  of  action  that  the  good  is  realized.  All 
this  is  essentially  true  whether  truth  appears  to  us 
under  the  religious  or  the  moral  banner,  and  nothing 
is  more  firmly  established  in  ethical  thinking  than 
that  our  ends  must  appeal  to  us  if  they  are  to  be  real- 
ized or  even  clearly  formulated  in  our  thought.  And 
the  appeal  does  not  come  from  the  deadly  perfection 
of  a  finished  idea  but  from  the  often  crude  and  unat- 
tractive half-formed  urge  of  envisioned  action  with  its 
hint  of  strife  and  pain  and  with  its  promise  of  loss 
and  toil, 


54  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

Rut.  to  rub  the  matter  in,  it  is  the  easiest  of  tasks 
to  show  that  the  very  heights  of  which  science  boasts 
are  themselves  attained  only  under  the  influence  of 
the  final  life  of  imagination  which  only  feeling  can 
give  to  thought  as  thought  approaches  its  higher  goals. 
We  tend  to  think  of  science  as  the  grub  work  which 
only  hacks  can  do  with  pick  and  spade,  as  the  dreary 
round  of  dirty  toil  of  lowly  souls  who  can  work  only 
with  their  hands.  We  speak  of  the  upatient"  search 
and  the  disappointing  failure  of  our  experimenting, 
and  we  tend  to  form  in  our  imagination  when  we 
think  of  science  the  picture  of  mus^ed-up  tables  and 
smelly  vessels  and  fulsome  fumes  of  frothing  filth 
and  withal  a  tired  and  sad-eyed  dirty  man  who  has 
given  up  all  the  comforts  and  joys  of  living, — all  in 
the  pursuit  of  sacred  truth.     , 

But  the  picture  is  mostly  false;  the  real  work  of 
the  scientist  is  done  in  the  cleanly  comfort  of  a  study 
where  he  is  surrounded  with  the  thought  results  of  all 
time:  and  it  is  the  exhiliaration  which  he  there  enjoys 
with  the  progress  of  his  mind  among  the  realities  which 
the  practical  man  armed  with  all  the  forces  of  nature 
can  never  know  which  induces  the  man  of  intelligence 
to  court  the  wise  but  shy  Athena.  And,  here,  just  as 
in  the  practical  life,  success  means  excess;  and  having 
attained  the  coveted  prize  the  scientist  resorts  at  once 
to  extravagant  claims  for  the  virtues  of  his  mistress, 
which,  with  all  the  heat  and  vehemence  of  feeling  he 
asserts  to  have  been  born  full-formed  out  of  the  head 
of  the  god.     It  is  thus  in  the  quiet  exercise  of  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  55 

imagination  stimulated  by  feeling  that  the  significant 
things  in  the  life  of  the  mind  are  created,  and  they 
are  not,  as  the  scientist  sometimes  carelessly  states, 
achieved  by  and  from  the  handiwork  of  the  laboratory. 
And  many  of  the  extravangances  of  science  are  due  to 
the  fact  that,  when  it  seems  necessary  to  discount  the 
unaided  power  of  thought,  it  is  assumed  that  science 
can  think  with  its  hands. 

Thus  it  seems  clear  that  feeling  in  the  synthetic 
forms  of  some  of  our  larger  and  more  fundamental 
attitudes  reaches  truth  as  directly  and  as  surely  as 
does  thought.  Wei  must  act  often  where,  whether  we 
cannot  know  or  not,  we  at  present  do  not  know;  and 
while  such  assurances  as  we  have  in  such  cases  comes 
largely  from  conviction  attained  in  thought,  it  is  never- 
theless true  that  mere  conviction  does  not  by  itself 
tie  our  powers  and  capacities  to  our  goals,  except 
through  the  help  of  the  pliant  adaptableness  of  our 
urgent  feelings.  It  is  feeling  that  gives  content  to 
the  abstract  form  of  truth  in  all  human  practical  in- 
terests; and  feeling  furnishes  not  only  motive  force 
but  also  direction  for  our  capacities  when  employed 
in  the  scientific  pursuit  of  truth.  There  is  no  aspect 
of  life  where  feeling  is  not  a  constructive  part,  and 
our  understanding  of  any  sort  or  type  of  human  expe- 
rience is  conditioned  upon  our  infusing  the- percept  ion 
of  the  real  with  the  warmth  and  glow  of  feeling. 


CHAPTER  V. 

II.      SENSATION    AS   PERCEPTIVE   ATTENTION. 

We  have  already  stated  what  we  mean  by  sensation 
when  we  referred  to  the  element  of  raw  fact  in  our 
contacts  with  objects.  It  is  an  aspect  of  perception. 
I  put  my  hand  upon  the  book  that  lies  before  me  and 
I  feel  its  coldness,  hardness,  and  its  clothy  roughness. 
1  push  it  off  the  table  and  I  hear  the  sound  of  its 
striking  the  floor.  I  take  an  apple  in  my  hand  and 
feel  the  softish  smoothness  of  its  skin,  its  coolness 
pleasantly  stings  my  touch,  I  smell  the  odors  it  emits, 
and  see  the  rosy  color  curving  around  its  oval  form. 
These  are  the  natures  of  experiences  as  they  come  to 
me,  and  their  characters  have  been  described  above 
as  fact  aspects  of  perception.  It  is  our  purpose  here 
to  split  up  these  completed  experiences  which  we  called 
perceptions,  and  thus  try  to  find  the  simplest  stuffs 
of  which  they  are  composed.  This  does  not  promise 
a  pleasing  prospect.  By  this  we  mean  that  sensations 
by  themselves  are  not  real  experiences,  and  we  can 
find  and  describe  them  only  by  breaking  up  the  per- 
ceptual unities  in  which  all  our  experiences  come  to 
us.  This  essential  fact  we  must  always  keep  in  mind, 
and  if  we  find  ourselves  taking  sensations  as  by  them- 
selves real  experiences  we  must  reflect  that  they  are 
only  real  as  and  when  they  make  up  parts  of  percep- 
tual wholes. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  *    57 

We  may  say  once  more  that  sensations  are  the  cog- 
nitive or  attentive  or  knowing  contacts  which  we  form 
through  the  organs  of  our  bodies  with  the  objects  of 
the  external  world.  But  if  we  regard  these  objects 
as  complete  wholes  or  unities,  it  is  only  as  they  are 
objects  of  perception,  and  not  as  objects  of  sensation. 
Let  us  look  at  these  objects  for  a  moment,  to  see  what 
it  is  about  them  that  comes  to  us  in  sensation.  If  I 
hold  up  a  book  before  you  and  ask  what  you  see,  you 
will  reply  at  once  that  you  see  a  book.  But  suppose 
you  are  ten  yards  from  me  and  the  light  is  not  good. 
I  hold  up  a  book  with  a  blue  cover  for  a  few  moments 
and  then  I  exchange  it  for  a  piece  of  wood  cut  in  the 
same  shape  as  the  book  and  painted  the  same  shade 
of  blue.  You  cannot  now  distinguish  the  one  from 
the  other.  What  you  see,  then,  is  not  a  book,  but  an 
object  of  a  certain  color  and  form.  When  you  say 
you  see  a  book  what  you  have  in  your  mind  is  an 
interpretation  of  the  thing  you  actually  see,  and  what 
you  actually  see  is  a  certain  color  and  a  certain  form. 
That  is,  you  see  the  qualities  of  things,  and  the  things 
themselves,  in  so  far  as  they  mean  anything,  are  com- 
binations of  qualities  that  imply  other  acts  of  your 
mind  than  those  directly  concerned  in  sensation.  We 
are  dealing  with  the  qualities  of  things  in  so  far  as 
they  affect  our  knowledge. 

The  problem  which  we  have  on  our  hands  is,  there- 
fore, one  of  enumerating  and  describing  and  classify- 
ing these  qualities.  For  it  is  from  these  qualities — 
sense  qualities,  they  are  called — together  with  feeling 


58  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

already  described,  that  all  our  other  experiences  are 
derived.  Some  of  the  more  important  of  our  experi- 
ences are  not  derived  directly  from  these  experienced 
qualities,  but  are  made  up  of  them  after  they  have 
been,  made  over  in  various  processes  other  than  sensa- 
tion. But  sooner  or  later  all  experiences  go  back  to 
sense  qualities  and  feelings  as  their  sources.  It  is  of 
great  importance,  therefore,  that  we  pick  out  and  de- 
scribe some  of  the  more  common  of  these  sense  qual- 
ities. 

Everyone,  we  may  suppose,  is  familiar  with  the 
popular  idea  that  we  are  limited  to  the  five  senses.  And 
everybody  knows  them  as  sight,  hearing,  taste,  touch 
and  smell.  But  as  we  shall  see,  popular  knowledge 
is  here,  as  in  so  many  other  cases,  quite  decidedly 
wrong,  or  at  least  incomplete.  We  will  take  up  the 
"five  senses"  first,  and  then  go  on  to  show  that  there 
are  several  forms  of  sensation  that  cannot  be  included 
within  the  five.  And  we  may  as  well  take  them  in  the 
order  in  which  they  are  <<iven.  and  begin  with 

SIGHT. 

We  have  defined  sensation  as  the  knowing  contacts 
which  we  have  through  the  organs  of  our  bodies  with 
the  external  world.  Now,  there  are  special  organs  for 
each  kind  of  sensation,  organs  whose  only  business  is 
to  make  the  connection  between  the  mind  and  the  out- 
side object,  pretty  much  as  the  telephone  operator 
gives  us  the  connection  with  the  party  we  call  for.  It 
blinds  very  simple  to  say  that  all  sensations  of  sight 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  59 

come  through  the  eye;  but  just  how  they  come,  and 
just  what  kinds  of  mechanisms  enable  the  eye  to  see 
are  very  difficult  to  explain.  We  cannot  go  into  all 
the  details  in  describing  the  eye,  but  we  may  see  how 
the  eye  works  as  a  whole.  There  is  a  very  common 
mechanism  that  is  very  similar  to  the  eye,  for  the 
ordinary  camera  shows  many  of  the  main  facts  that 
are  involved  in  seeing.  In  the  front  of  the  camera, 
as  also  in  the  eye,  is  a  hole  through  which  light  is  ad- 
mitted. This  is  the  small  opening  which  you  can  see 
when  you  look  into  another  person's  eye,  and  is  called 
the  pupil.  This  opening  is  larger  when  you  are  in  the 
darkness  than  when  you  are  in  a  brightly  lighted  room. 
The  size  of  the  opening  is  controlled  by  muscles,  just 
as  you  can  pucker  up  your  mouth  and  reduce  its  size, 
only  in  the  case  of  the  pupil  the  muscles  work  with- 
out your  being  conscious  of  them.  The  light  in  pass- 
ing the  pupil  enters  the  cornea,  which  as  a  hardened 
skin  gives  shape  to  the  front  of  the  eye-ball.  Back 
of  this,  and  separated  from  it  by  a  liquid,  is  the  lens, 
which  is  an  instrument  for  changing  the  direction  of 
the  light  rays.  Both  the  cornea  and  the  lens  so  bend 
the  rays  of  light  as  to  make  more  of  them  fall  upon  a 
given  area  of  the  curtain  that  lies  at  the  back  of  the 
eye,  called  the  retina.  They  focus  the  light  rays  just 
as  the  reading  glass  will  collect  enough  of  the  sun's 
rays  to  set  afire  the  paper  on  which  they  fall.  It  is 
in  the  retina  that  the  events  important  for  seeing  take 
place.  The  retina  is  a  layer  of  tissue  which  covers 
about  half  of  the  inner  wall  of  the  eve,  the  half  that 


60  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

lies  at  the  back  of  the  eye-ball.  Within  the  retina  are 
the  organs  which  transform  the  light  into  some  other 
form  of  energy,  which  is  carried  to  the  brain  by  the 
optic  nerve.  Just  what  happens  here  is  not  very  well 
known,  but  there  are  certain  changes  that  take  place 
in  the  retina,  and  it  is  through  these  changes  that  the 
light  that  comes  from  the  object  which  you  see  is  in 
some  form  carried  to  the  brain. 

But  this  description  of  organs  and  structures  is 
physiology  and  not  psychology.  It  is  sufficient  for  our 
purposes  to  say  that  in  some  way  the  light  from  the 
object  seen,  after  it  has  undergone  certain  changes, 
brings  about  changes  in  the  brain,  and  as  these  changes 
in  the  brain  take  place  we  become  conscious  of  the 
quality  of  the  object.  We  cannot  say  that  the  changes 
in  the  brain  cause  the  consciousness,  but  only  that  the 
consciousness  takes  place  along  with  and  at  the  same 
time  as  the  changes  in  the  brain. 

The  important  matter  is,  moreover,  not  what  takes 
place  in  the  brain,  but  what  kind  of  qualities  are  recog- 
nized by  consciousness.  The  most  important  of  these 
qualities  are  color  and  brightness,  and  a  third  which 
represents  a  relation  between  color  and  brightness,  and 
is  called  saturation.  There  are,  as  everybody  knows, 
almost  an  infinite  number  of  colors,  as  also  of  degrees 
of  brightness  ranging  from  pure  white  to  pure  black. 
The  intervening  shades  between  white  and  black  are 
called  the  grays. 

But  while  there  are  many  colors,  it  has  become  cus- 
tomary to  adopt  four  of  them  as  more  important  than 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  ol 

the  others,  and  these  are  called  primary  colors.  The 
primary  colors  are  red,  green,  yellow  and  "blue,  and 
they  are  so  called  because  the  other  shades  and  tints 
of  color  can  be  produced  by  combining  the  primary 
colors  in  the  proper  degrees  and  ways.  They  are  re- 
garded as  primary  also  because  when  certain  pairs  of 
them  are  combined  in  the  right  proportions,  the  re- 
sult is  not  another  color,  but  a  gray.  Thus  when  the 
red  and  green  are  combined  in  certain  proportions,  the 
result  is  not  a  reddish  green  nor  a  greenish  red;  it  is 
not  a  color  at  all,  but  a  gray  with  no  hint  of  color  in 
it  of  any  sort.  The  same  is  true  of  blue  and  yellow, 
and  this  fact  has  caused  these  pairs  of  colors  to  be 
called  complementary  colors.  These  primary  colors 
also,  when  mixed  in  the  right  proportions,  will  pro- 
duce the  other  colors  of  the  spectrum. 

All  this  great  variety  of  colors,  then,  together  with 
the  enormous  number  of  brightnesses,  makes  up  the 
vast  array  of  qualities  which  occur  to  the  conscious- 
ness in  connection  with  the  working  of  the  eye.  There 
are  many  other  aspects  of  experience  in  which  sight 
has  an  important  part,  but  they  are  not  properly  to 
be  called  sensations.  Thus,  sight  is  concerned  in  such 
phenomena  as  distance,  depth,  size  and  duration  of  ex- 
periences, but  these  involve  also  other  facts  than  sensa- 
tions, so  it  is  common  to  refer  these  facts  to  percep- 
tion since  they  imply  that  the  consciousness  has 
treated  the  sensations  it  has  received  in  some  such  way 
as  to  modify  them,  that  is,  the  consciousness  has  in- 
terpreted the  sensations  and  invested  them  with  mean- 


62  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

ing,  and  this  interpretation  of  sensation  is  what   we 
tailed  perception. 

There  are,  of  course,  many  other  interesting  facts 
in  connection  with  sight  that  we  might  have  mentioned, 
but  we  have  said  enough  to  show  the  great  impor- 
tance of  sight  in  the  life  of  mind.  For  most  of  us  the 
qualities  of  our  world  which  we  get  through  sight 
forms  the  larger  bulk  of  our  knowledge.  It  gives  us 
perhaps  more  clearly  than  any  other  sense  our  notion 
of  the  illimitable  greatness  of  the  physical  world,  and 
it  is  through  sight  that  we  get  many  of  the  suggestions 
of  opportunity  to  a  larger  and  richer  life.  It  is,  of 
course,  true  that  blind  persons  are  not  altogether  shut 
out  from  the  beauty  and  grandeur  and  vastness  of  our 
common  world,  but  it  is  still  true  of  those  born  blind 
that  the  world  of  those  who  see  contains  qualities  of 
which  they  can  never  be  aware.  Those  who  lack  the 
power  of  sight  must  then  learn  to  build  out  the  con- 
tacts which  they  have  with  the  world  through  the 
other  senses;  and  while  the  sharpness  of  sensation  can 
probably  not  be  cultivated,  the  power  to  gather  mean- 
ings from  sensations  can  be  developed  almost  to  an  in- 
conceivable degree  of  perfection.  The  sense  which  is 
perhaps  next  in  importance  to  sight  is 

HEARING. 

As  in  the  case  of  sight  we  may  begin  by  discussing 
the  organs  involved  in  the  experience  of  hearing.  This, 
as  everybody  knows,  is  the  ear;  but  not  everybody 
knows  just  how  intricate  and  delicate  are  the  struc- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  63 

tures  most  directly  concerned  with  hearing.  Indeed, 
there  is  much  that  is  still  unknown  even  to  the  most 
expert  physiologists,  which  is  proof  enough  that  we 
know  vastly  more  about  the  mind  and  its  workings 
than  we  do  about  the  body.  In  the  case  of  hearing, 
there  is  little  difficulty  in  giving  a  pretty  full  account 
of  the  significant  facts,  in  so  far  as  these  facts  have 
to  do  with  consciousness  or  mind;  the  real  difficulty 
lies  in  the  fact  that  we  do  not  know  a  great  deal  about 
the  structure  of  the  ear,  and  it  is  probable  that  many 
of  these  structures  are  described,  not  as  we  know  them 
to  be,  but  as  we  know  they  would  have  to  be  if  they 
are  to  be  responsible  for  our  hearing  sounds.  That  is, 
it  is  what  we  know  of  the  mental  facts  of  hearing  that 
explains  the  physical  facts  of  the  body,  and  this  is  true 
in  a  good  many  other  cases. 

The  parts  of  the  ear  that  are  directly  responsible 
for  hearing  lie  inside  the  skull,  and  the  parts  that  are 
visible,  or  the  ear  in  the  ordinary  sense,  is  useful  to 
hearing  largely  because  it  gathers  the  air  waves  and 
pours  them  into  the  inner  ear  pretty  much  as  you  use 
a  funnel  to  pour  water  into  a  vessel.  It  has  perhaps 
also  something  to  do  with  the  perception  of  the  direc- 
tion from  which  sounds  come,  but  that,  as  we  know, 
is  not  a  sensation.  The  inner  parts  of  the  hearing 
machine  are  two  hollow  places  in  the  bones  of  the  skull 
which  are  filled  with  delicate  instruments.  The  one 
nearest  the  outside  is  a  cavity  filled  with  air  through 
a  tube  which  connects  it  with  the  throat,  it  being  shut 
off  from  the  air  outside  bv  the  drum.     The  drum  is  a 


64  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

thin  rubbery  curtain  between  the  air  outside  and  the 
air  in  the  inner  cavity,  so  that  when  the  air  outside  is 
disturbed,  the  disturbance  passes  through  the  drum 
into  the  air  inside,  just  as  when  you  open  the  window 
the  air  outside  bends  the  curtains  inward  and  causes  a 
breeze  in  the  room.  It  is  this  vibration  movement  of 
the  drum  which  ultimately  results  in  hearing  sounds. 
The  movement  is  carried  from  the  drum  to  delicate 
structures  that  carry  the  vibratory  motion  to  the  nerve 
fibers  in  the  inner  ear.  All  these  fibers  are  gathered 
up  into  one  nerve  cord  which  runs  to  the  brain. 

It  should  be  repeated  that  this  long  description  is 
again  physiology,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  hearing 
as  a  conscious  fact  except  that  it  serves  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  process  by  which  air  waves  are  transformed 
into  nervous  processes.  But  just  where  or  just  how 
that  transformation  is  effected,  nobody  knows.  Let  us 
turn  now  to  what  we  do  know  about  hearing  as  a  set 
of  objects  or  conscious  facts. 

The  main  qualities  of  sounds  as  conscious  facts  are 
those  called  tones  and  noises.  And  the  main  reason 
we  have  for  distinguishing  these  as  conscious  facts  is 
that  the  one  is  pleasing  to  us,  and  the  other  displeas- 
ing. We  like  tones  and  we  do  not  like  noises,  and  that 
is  the  fundamental  practical  distinction  among  the 
facts  of  hearing.  Sounds,  as  conscious  facts,  are  di- 
vided into  tones  and  noises.  The  physicist  will  tell 
you  that  the  difference  between  tones  and  noises  is 
one  of  complexity,  etc.,  of  air  waves.  But  this  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  tones  and  noises  which  we  hear, 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  65 

or  as  we  are  conscious  of  them. 

Sounds  that  are  tones,  then,  are  sounds  that  please 
us.  Now,  there  are  three  qualities  of  tones  that  we 
must  briefly  describe.  One  of  these  is  called  pitch,  and 
the  name  refers  to  the  characters  of  tones  we  have  in 
mind  when  we  speak  of  them  as  high  or  low.  This 
quality  perhaps  needs  or  can  have  no  minute  descrip- 
tion, since  it  is  an  original  fact,  and  for  original  facts 
there  is  no  explanation.  We  could  tell  of  the  differ- 
ence between  the  ways  in  which  high  tones  are  pro- 
duced and  the  ways  low  tones  are  produced,  but  this 
would  not  explain  the  meaning  of  high  and  low  as  ap- 
plied to  tones.  This  meaning  can  only  be  heard,  and 
all  our  talk  about  it  cannot  help  one  who  has  not  the 
ear  to  make  the  distinction. 

•Another  quality  of  tones  is  called  intensity.  This 
means  simply  the  strength  or  force  with  which  the  tone 
comes  to  us.  And  once  more  we  are  here,  as  in  the 
case  of  all  real  sense  qualities,  dealing  with  a  fact  that 
cannot  be  adequately  described,  but  must  simply  be 
experienced  to  be  understood.  We  could  illustrate 
after  a  fashion  the  difference  between  a  low  and  a  high 
intensity  by  saying  that  the  high  intensity  was  pro- 
duced by  a  stronger  or  larger  volume  of  force  than  the 
low  intensity,  but  this  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  qualities  as  distinguished  in  the  mind.  Anybody 
who  has  any  "ear"  at  all  knows  what  is  meant  by  tones 
that  are  more  intense  and  by  tones  that  are  of  less  in- 
tensity, and  we  will  let  the  description  go  at  that. 

The  other  quality  of  tone  is  the  interesting  and  im- 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

portant  one  called  timbre  or  tone-color.  It  is  that 
which  makes  one  tone  different  from  another  as  dis- 
tinguished from  their  relations  of  pitch  and  intensity. 
What  we  call  the  "same"  tone  when  sounded  at  once 
on  the  piano  and  on  the  violin  are  quite  different,  and 
that  they  are  different  is  about  all  we  can  say.  Each 
may  please  us  equally  with  the  other;  and  although 
you  may  have  a  preference  for  the  violin  tone,  the 
preference  can  perhaps  not  be  explained.  Like  all 
other  fundamental  sense  qualities,  timbre  is  unique; 
there  is  nothing  else  in  the  universe  like  it.  It  is  what 
belongs  to  a  tone  which  makes  the  tone  not  only  dif- 
ferent from  all  other  tones,  but  also  from  all  other 
things  in  the  world.  It  is  that  pleasantness  of  sound 
which  it  is,  which  you  can  distinguish  from  other 
pleasing  sounds,  but  cannot  tell  how  you  distinguish  it. 
We  have  now  the  unpleasant  task  of  disposing  of 
noise  as  a  conscious  fact.  Noises  are  sounds  which  we 
don't  like.  And  while  our  task  is  to  describe  noise  as 
a  fact,  it  will  be  impossible  to  make  the  description  as 
dry  and  meaningless  as  ''scientific  accuracy"  may  de- 
mand, if  we  accept  the  definition  given  above,  which 
makes  the  essential  trait  of  noise  the  fact  that  we 
don't  like  it.  From  a  certain  point  of  view  a  noise 
is  a  complex  lot  of  sounds,  some  of  which  perhaps,  if 
heard  singly,  would  or  might  not  be  objectionable.  But 
this  is  hardly  fair  to  the  hearer;  it  puts  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  hateful  character  of  noise  upon  the  in- 
ability of  the  hearer  to  distinguish  the  tones  involved; 
and  why  should  I  take  the  trouble  to  rescue  a  tone 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  67 

from  the  sorry  mess? 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  details  in  connection 
with  noise,  for  the  people  who  alone  are  living  in  this 
world  are  only  too  painfully  aware  of  the  many  11 1— 
shapen  forms  into  which  its  very  obtrusiveness  multi- 
plies it.  There  is  no  longer  on  earth  a  retreat  from 
its  bumptious  impudence,  thanks  to  the  rapid  increase 
of  that  spawn  of  the  devil,  the  automobile.  Retire  to 
the  primitive  wood  and  hill  where  once  the  chaste1 
spirit  of  solitude  sang  audibly  through  bough  and  fern 
and  rill.  The  snorting  chortle  of  the  automobile 
drowns  the  sacred  silence  and  seals  its  dead  lips  with 
the  greasy  creak  of  smudge  and  iron.  The  noise  hunter 
is  there,  seeking  another  tickle  which  will  spawn  an- 
other noise. 

The  simple  elements  which  the  mind  derives  from 
the  sense  of  hearing  are  first,  tones,  which  we  have 
seen  bear  the  original  qualities  of  timbre,  pitch  and 
intensity;  and,  second,  noise,  which  we  have  seen  de- 
fies any  orderly  classification  of  its  forms.  The  first 
group  of  qualities  combine  in  various  ways  to  make 
the  beauty  and  the  harmony  into  which  the  move- 
ments of  the  physical  world,  as  auditory  objects,  tend 
to  order  themselves.  They  create  music  and  poetry 
and  all  the  other  forms  of  art  when  they  come  under 
the  influence  of  the  pure,  that  is,  the  disinterested  in- 
telligence. When  the  order  into  which  they  come  is 
of  the  spirit  or  mind,  they  tend  to  the  clean  beauty  of 
nature  and  the  fulness  of  life,  but  when  broken  by 
irresponsible  and  interested  purposes,  the  tonal  move 


68  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

ments  of  nature  fall  into  the  tortured  forms  of  mere 
artifice,  and  they  clutter  man's  life  with  the  accursed 
instruments  of  civilization.  Allowed  to  grow,  they  be- 
come the  cultural  institutions  of  life;  prostituted  to 
mere  increase,  they  become  the  destitution  of  the  life 
they  are  falsely  supposed  to  support. 

TOUCH. 

The  sense  of  touch  has  been  found  to  be  a  mixture 
of  several  sense  qualities  which,  unlike  the  qualities  of 
sight  and  hearing,  are  not  of  the  same  general  type, 
nor  are  furnished  through  the  same  organs,  but  which 
have  their  own  organs  and  seem  to  be  quite  distinct. 
The  popular  notion  would  regard  touch  as  the  general 
sense  function  of  the  skin,  while  cold  and  warm,  rough 
and  smooth,  etc.,  would  be  the  forms  of  quality  into 
which  touch  would  divide  itself.  But  the  average  per- 
son can  determine  for  himself  whether  this  is  the  case 
by  performing  certain  simple  experiments  which  the 
psychologists  have  worked  out.  We  will  first  state  the 
number  and  nature  of  qualities  derived  from  the  skin 
and  then  show  the  experiments  through  which  they 
may  be  recognized. 

Take  an  object  in  your  hands  and  you  will  feel  at 
once  that  it  is  hard  or  soft,  rough  or  smooth,  cold  or 
warm,  blunt  or  sharp,  or  what  is  more  difficult  to 
state,  whether  it  merely  makes  contact  with  the  hand 
or  tends  to  displace  the  tissues  of  the  hand.  The  ex- 
periences of  hard  and  soft  and  mere  contact  may  be 
called    the   contact    qualities,    and    they    may    be    dis- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  69 

tinguished  from  each  other  partly  by  the  degree  of  re- 
sistence  offered  by  the  object  touched.  Clearly  hard- 
ness and  softness  are  complications  of  mere  contact 
with  bluntness  or  the  sense  of  space  as  received 
through  the  skin.  The  sense  quality  that  is  of  the  same 
general  order  as  contact,  but  which  differs  from  it  in 
an  original  qualitative  way,  is  pain.  This  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  the  difference  between  contact  and 
pain  cannot  be  explained  in  terms  of  the  intensity  of 
the  stimulus,  by  the  difference  of  mere  force  which  the 
stimulating  object  exerts.  It  is  clear  to  anyone  what 
we  mean  by  hard  and  soft,  rough  and  smooth,  etc., 
but  it  seems  clear  that  they  are  not  simple  qualities, 
but  are  rather  perceptual  complexes. 

But  the  fact  of  touch  is  indubitable.  Take  any  small 
object,  say  a  lead  pencil,  and  pass  it  lightly  over  the 
surface  of  the  skin.  Notice  that  on  surfaces  that  are 
exposed  to  contacts  with  external  objects,  as  the  hands 
or  face,  the  light  touch  or  feel  of  the  pencil  is  quite 
different  in  quality  from  any  other  sensation  derived 
from  the  skin,  and  that  it  is  pronouncedly  agreeable. 
Now  pass  the  pencil  over  the  parts  of  the  body  ordi- 
narily covered  with  the  clothing,  and  you  will  notice 
the  same  quality  of  feel,  but  with  the  agreeableness 
exaggerated  till  it  approaches  the  disagreeableness  of 
tickle.  Here  we  have  the  pure  sense  of  contact  some- 
what obscured  by  the  habitual  sense  of  bluntness,  or 
space  made  constant  by  the  pressure  of  the  clothing. 
The  disagreeableness  is  possibly  due  to  the  unfamiliar- 
itv  of  the  sense  of  small-area  contact  on  these  areas  of 


70  THE  LIFE  OF  MEND 

the  skin.  But,  however  this  may  be,  the  sense  of  touch 
or  contact  is  a  quite  distinct  and  very  real  experience. 
This  quality  we  may  call  touch  proper. 

Now  take  a  very  sharp  needle.  Go  lightly  and  care- 
fully over  a  small  portion  of  the  skin  on  the  back  of 
the  hand,  touching  with  the  point  on  spots  as  close  to- 
gether as  possible.  You  will  notice  that  you  will  get 
the  sense  of  contact  or  touch  at  all  points,  but  at  some 
points  you  will  get  the  very  distinct  quality  of  pain. 
At  some  spots  there  will  be  no  pain,  even  though  you 
press  the  needle  until  it  pierces  the  skin.  You  have 
now  found  a  "pain  spot"  and  a  spot  where  no  pain  is 
felt.  This  shows  clearly  that  pain  is  a  pure  sense 
quality,  since  you  can  get  the  feel  of  pain  without  ex- 
citing any  of  the  other  qualities,  or  at  least  without 
exciting  any  except  the  more  or  less  general  sense  of 
contact. 

There  are  two  other  qualities  that  we  get  from  the 
skin — those  usually  called  the  temperature  qualities. 
Eet  your  lead  pencil  lie  for  a  little  while  where  it  will 
become  cool.  See  that  it  is  sharpened  so  that  the  lead 
is  exposed,  but  not  too  sharp.  When  it  has  cooled, 
pass  it  (the  point)  lightly  and  slowly  over  the  skin  on 
the  back  of  the  hand,  or  touch  it  lightly  on  spots  that 
lie  close  to  each  other.  From  most  of  the  spots  you 
will  get  only  the  feel  of  touch  proper,  but  occasionally 
you  will  get  the  pure  sting  of  cold  unmixed  with  any 
other  sensation.  Hold  the  pencil  lightly  on  the  spot 
and  give  your  attention  to  the  feel,  and  you  will  be 
able  to  isolate  in  your  consciousness  the  unmixed  cold. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  71 

If  the  experiment  fails,  try  it  repeatedly  and  test  your 
pencil  to  see  whether  it  is  cold. 

The  other  temperature  quality  is  somewhat  more 
difficult  to  find.  Have  the  point  of  your  pencil  warmed 
to  slightly  above  the  body  temperature,  and  pass  the 
point  over  the  back  of  the  hand  as  in  the  experiment 
for  the  determination  of  cold.  The  touch  feeling  will 
perhaps  be  present  all  the  time,  and  may  confuse  you. 
But  sooner  or  later,  if  you  get  the  proper  conditions, 
you  will  find  a  spot  where  a  perfectly  distinct  feeling 
of  warmth  will  stand  out  just  as  clearly  as  did  the  feel- 
ing of  cold  in  the  previous  experiment.  The  feelings 
of  hot  and  biting  cold  can  be  shown  to  be  mixtures 
of  warm  and  cold  with  pain.  In  the  cases  of  warmth 
and  cold,  another  important  fact  about  sensation  can 
easily  be  shown.  Put  your  hand  in  very  hot  water 
(not  hot  enough  to  scald,  of  course),  and  leave  it  there 
a  few  moments.  Now  take  it  out  of  the  water  for  a 
moment,  and  when  you  replace  it  in  the  water  it  will 
feel  only  pleasantly  warm.  But  sink  the  hand  more 
deeply  in  the  water,  and  the  parts  covered  for  the  first 
time  will  tell  you  that  the  water  is  still  painfully  hot. 
The  fact  that  a  sense  gets  "used"  to  its  stimulus  in 
this  way  is  called  the  fatigue  of  the  sense. 

In  the  case  of  the  sense  of  touch  there  are,  then, 
four  qualities — touch  proper,  or  what  is  often  called 
pressure,  and  which  we  have  at  times  called  pure  con- 
tact; pain,  warmth,  and  cold.  Combinations  of  these 
give  us  the  various  "feels"  of  the  objects  which  come 
in  contact  with  our  bodies.     We  are  taught  to  regard 


12  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

sight  and  hearing  as  the  "higher,?  and  more  important 
senses,  but  this  merely  means  that  the  touch  qualities 
have  not  been  given  their  proper  place  in  the  life  of 
the  individual.  Whenever  touch  is  emphasized  it  is 
usually  to  say  that  it  is  fundamental  for  the  needs 
of  the  organism,  but  the  finer  aspects  of  experience 
enjoyed  in  art  are  supposed  to  be  the  exclusive  work 
of  sight  and  hearing.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  have 
some  of  our  rarest  experiences  by  taking  things  into 
our  hands  and  allowing  their  delicacy  of  form  and 
texture  to  creep  in  through  the  fingers.  You  cannot 
keep  your  hands  off  a  saucily  pretty  baby,  and  you 
want  to  stroke  the  fine  lines  of  a  beautiful  vase,  even 
though  its  colors  ravish  the  eye.  It  is  hard  to  go  into 
a  beautiful  flower  garden  and  refrain  from  fondling 
the  plants,  and  the  rose  is  never  so  sweet  to  the  eye 
or  nose  as  when  you  take  its  velvety  leaves  in  your 
hand,  and  the  prick  of  its  sharp  thorn  can  often  easily 
be  taken  as  a  token  of  the  familiarity  which  the  bush 
would  like  to  cultivate  with  you.  Lay  your  hand  on 
the  ugliest  of  plants  to  do  it  violence,  and  the  appeal 
which  its  throbbing  life  makes  to  you  to  spare  it  for 
the  beauty  which  it  has  failed  to  justify  to  the  eye 
will  find  a  response  in  the  relaxing  of  the  fingers  if 
you  are  not  wholly  bad.  Even  the  beauty  of  form 
in  statuary  would  sometimes  escape  the  keenest  eye 
if  it  were  not  for  the  suggestions  of  grace  which  come 
from  imagining  your  hand  pausing  fondly  on  this 
curve  or  that,  and  if  you  know  how  to  read  yourself 
you  may  find  your  arm  slyly  embracing  the  lines  which 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  73 

hold  the  key  to  the  symmetry  to  the  whole.  Many  of 
us  have  eyes  and  see  not  because  we  cannot  touch,  and 
it  is  useless  to  hear  a  cadence  if  you  do  not  feel  the 
swell,  or  imagine  ourselves  as  sinking  beneath  the 
waves  of  tone.  Souls  meet  in  the  handshake  or  the 
kiss,  and  the  cold  prude  who  disdains  to  touch  his 
brother  can  never  know  the  fuller  realities  of  the 
larger  life. 

TASTE. 

Another  of  our  neglected  senses  is  taste.  It  is  of 
course  true  with  most  people  that  they  stimulate  their 
taste  a-plenty  with  all  sorts  of  foods  and  drinks,  but 
even  these  fail  to  put  enough  attentive  interest  into 
the  experience  of  taste  to  ever  discover  the  rare  quali- 
ties it  may  possess.  They  all  seem  bent  on  stimulat- 
ing the  taste  strongly  or  maintaining  it  indefinitely, 
and  as  a  consequence  eat  too  much  or  drink  too  much. 
And  it  is  a  serious  question  as  to  whether  our  tipplers 
of  so-called  soft  drinks  arc  not  doing  the  race  more 
injury  than  their  predecessors  who  guzzled  too  much 
beer.  Alcohol  is  not  the  only  dangerous  chemical 
which  our  drinks  may  contain. 

As  in  the  case  of  touch  sensations,  the  organs  for 
taste  are  not  of  very  great  importance  for  descriptive 
purposes;  besides  we  cannot  too  often  repeat  that 
descriptions  of  organs  have  nothing  to  do  with  mind. 
They  are  probably  modified  skin  sense  organs.  They 
are  scattered  over  the  surface  of  the  tongue,  on  parts 
of  the  throat,  and  in  children   in  the  insides  of  the 


74  THE  LIFE  OF   MIND 

cheeks.  You  can  sec  them  as  bright  pink  spots  on 
the  tip  of  the  tongue  which  stand  out  from  the  sur- 
face in  little  rows  of  hills.  These  spots  on  the  tip 
of  the  tongue  give  us  mainly  the  sweet  tastes,  while 
on  the  back  of  the  tongue  are  the  organs  which  handle 
the  bitter  tastes.  On  the  sides  are  the  organs  for 
sour,  while  distributed  pretty  evenly  over  the  surface 
are  the  organs  for  salt.  Some  of  these  facts  you  can 
demonstrate  for  yourself.  Put  quinine  on  the  tip 
of  the  tongue  but  do  not  allow  the  tip  to  touch  any 
other  part  of  the  mouth,  and  you  will  not  taste 
bitter  at  all. 

It  is  popularly  supposed  that  there  are  a  great  many 
tastes,  but  the  four  mentioned  above,  sweet,  sour,  bitter 
and  salt,  are  probably  all  the  tastes  we  have.  Of  course 
it  is  true  that  there  is  a  peculiar  taste  to  everything 
we  eat;  for  example,  apple,  sugar,  ice  cream,  bread, 
etc — all  these  seems  to  have  tastes  of  their  own.  But 
a  few  simple  experiments  will  show  that  such  is  not 
the  case.  Take  some  object  with  a  pronounced  taste. 
say  onion,  put  it  in  the  mouth  and  hold  the  nostrils 
closed  with  the  fingers.  Notice  what  you  really  taste. 
Mow  try  an  orange,  waiting  some  time  for  the  effects 
of  the  onion  taste  to  pass.  Such  experiments  show 
that  what  we  ordinarily  call  tastes  are  really  smells, 
or  are  combinations  of  tastes  with  smells,  tempera- 
tures, pressures,  etc.  Try  your  coffee  cold  some  day 
and  see  the  effect  of  the  taste;  or  let  your  ice  cream 
melt  and  notice  what  it  loses  in  taste.  It  is  the  com- 
bination of  sweet,  the  taste,  with  the  coldness  and  a 


THE  LIFE  OF  MINT)  75 

certain  granular  velvety   feel,  which  makes  the  rare 
"taste"  of  ice  cream. 

These  four  qualities  with  their  mixtures  and  their 
combinations  with  feels,  temperatures,  odors,  and 
pressures  make  up  the  whole  system  of  rare  experi- 
ences which  we  get  from  taking  nourishment.  But 
unfortunately  the  experiences  can  be  produced  by 
substances  that  do  not  nourish,  and  most  any  mess 
of  refuse  can  be  doctored  up  with  chemicals  so  as  to 
deceive  the  average  person,  as  the  refuse  from  a  starch 
factory  may  be  made  into  ''delicious"  pies.  Many 
"fruit"  extracts  are  merely  combinations  of  chemicals, 
and  excite  the  taste  for  the  same  reason,  and  nourish 
the  organism  just  as  much,  as  an  electric  current 
which  will  also  sometimes  excite  the  taste  sensation. 
You  can  make  a  tasty  drink  by  mixing  sugar,  vinegar 
and  soda,  but  the  food  value  of  anything  but  the  sugar 
is  questionable.  But  the  really  important  practical 
question  in  the  matter  of  taste  is  one  of  distinguishing 
carefully  between  the  mere  ravishment  which  comes 
from  intense  or  long  continued  stimulation  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  cultivation  of  the  rare  taste  quali- 
ties on  the  other.  Cornbread  can  be  so  eaten  as  not 
to  be  a  merely  coarse,  dry,  insipid  stuffy  mixture,  but 
in  a  way  such  as  to  bring  into  prominence  some  of  the 
rarer  of  the  sweets  along  with  some  of  the  finer  feels. 
I  can  imagine  no  more  delectable  experience  than 
crushing  a  bit  of  pineapple  in  the  room  where  I  sit 
and  smoke,  or  taking  a  bit  of  it  into  my  mouth  in 
order  to  eel  the  full  richness  of  the  odor,  but  1  should 


76  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

not  care  to  eat  the  stuff. 

SMELL. 

Much  of  what  is  important  about  smell  has  been 
said  already  in  connection  with  taste.  The  organs 
are  located  in  the  upper  nasal  passages,  and  are  stim- 
ulated by  substances  carried  in  the  air  we  breathe. 
The  qualities  of  smell  have  not  yet  been  "isolated,"  or 
singled  out  from  the  complex  of  experiences  where 
they  occur.  Consequently  it  seems  that  there  are  as 
many  odors  as  there  are  substances  that  smell,  but 
our  analysis  of  tastes  has  made  us  doubt  this.  It  is 
highly  probable  that  there  are  a  few  primary  or  basic 
odors,  and  that  the  great  majority  of  smells  are  due 
to  mixtures  of  these  or  to  combinations  of  them  with 
other  forms  of  sensation.  It  is  well  known,  for 
example,  that  menthol  stimulates  the  organ  for  cold, 
ammonia  the  organs  for  pain,  and  perhaps  causes 
certain  contractions  of  tissues  thus  giving  experiences 
of  feel.  Perhaps  then  we  do  not  "smell"  menthol  or 
ammonia,  any  more  than  we  may  be  said  to  smell 
onion  with  our  eyes  when  it  brings  the  tears.  There 
are  then  perhaps  no  definite  odors  which  we  can  name, 
and  the  best  we  can  do  is  to  name  the  smells  by  the 
substances  from  which  they  are  derived,  as  the  smell 
of  rose,  musk,  onion,  of  rubber,  smoke,  etc. 

But  this  does  not  prevent  our  seeing  and  remarking 
the  very  great  importance  of  smell.  Life  would  be  thin 
and  dull  and  poor  indeed  without  the  odors  of  blos- 
soming spring  and  of  mouldering  autumn.  If  you  can 
live  near  a  blossoming  wild  crabapple  life  cannot  be 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  77 

wholly  in  vain,  although  the  tree  should  blossom  only 
for  a  few  days  in  the  year;  for  these  few  days  you  can 
endure  the  sordid,  colorless  dullness  and  unprofitable- 
ness of  the  remaining  three  hundred  and  sixty— or 
you  might  even  if  you  were  not  spared  the  boredom 
by  the  honeysuckle  and  the  rose;  and  you  can  have 
a  lily  any  time.  There  will  be  little  reason  for  living, 
anyway,  when  these  have  been  overcome  by  the 
stifling  murk  of  burning  gasoline  or  by  the  fumes 
which  rise  from  the  nasty  process  of  making  a  living. 

OTHER    SENSATIONS. 

We  noted  above  that  the  traditional  five  senses  do 
not  exhaust  the  sources  through  which  experiences 
come  to  us.  We  have  more  holds  on  the  ark  of  truth 
than  we  are  aware  of,  many  more  than  we  use  either 
to  our  own  advantage  or  to  that  of  truth  or  beauty. 
We  have  been  taught  so  long  an  abstract  mess  of 
"mental"  stuff  in  the  interest  of  religion  and  morality 
that  we  have  been  forced  to  forget  that  the  life  is  in 
the  body.  Too  long  have  we  approached  truth  with 
heart  and  head;  and  we  have  forgotten  that  truth  and 
beauty  and  goodness  only  smile  on  us  when  we  stimu- 
late them  with  finger,  eye,  or  ear,  or  tongue,  and  they 
render  us  their  secrets  only  through  the  same  means. 
But  there  are  other  instruments  of  the  sensory  kind, 
and  we  must  look  at  some  of  them.  For  they  bulk 
larger  in  the  lives  of  many  of  us  than  eyes  or  ears,  and 
in  all  of  us  they  "see"  where  eye  and  ear  can  no 
longer  reach. 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

These  are  difficult  to  describe  just  because  they 
are  as  yet  undiscovered  by  many  persons.  But  every- 
one is,  for  example,  aware  of  the  rich  pleasure  which 
comes  from  the  activity  of  abounding  health,  or  the 
dark  depression  that  often  goes  with  even  slight  dis- 
turbances of  the  physical  condition.  These  experi- 
ences are  of  course  in  large  measure  feelings;  but  they 
perhaps  have  their  origins  in  sensations  arising  within 
the  muscular  or  glandular  or  other  systems.  In  any 
case  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  this;  you  are  aware 
that  your  arm  is  moving  when  you  do  not  see  it  move, 
you  know  in  what  position  it  stops  moving;  you  also 
know  without  seeing  or  feeling  through  the  skin  that 
the  arm  is  stretched  or  strained  when  you  carry  a 
heavy  weight.  Lifting  a  weight  gives  you  a  different 
feeling  from  what  you  get  from  pressing  downward 
on  something  solid;  you  know  on  which  foot  most  of 
the  body  weight  rests.  There  are  many  other  sensa- 
tions of  the  same  sort.  That  is,  the  muscles,  joints, 
etc.,  have  a  feel  of  their  own,  and  it  is  mainly  the 
whole  sum  of  these  feels  from  the  internal  parts  of 
the  organism  which  makes  up  the  body  of  our 
"moods";  those  indefinite  feelings  which  are  so  im- 
portant for  our  characters.  In  any  case  it  is  from 
these  sensory  facts  that  our  knowledge  about  our  own 
body  comes,  and  this  knowledge  is  extremely  useful 
in  that  it  enables  us  to  control  our  movements.  For 
example,  we  know  how  to  walk  unconsciously  while 
we  are  talking  with  a  friend,  just  because  we  are 
getting  unregistered  reports  from  all  parts  of  the  body 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  79 

involved  in  walking.  From  the  point  of  view  of  con- 
trol, then,  as  well  as  indicating  the  general  condition 
of  the  organism,  these  organic  sensations  are  extremely 
useful.  Sensations  having  to  do  with  the  movements 
of  the  body  probably  arise  from  organs  located  within 
the  muscles  and  tendons  and  joint  ligaments,  together 
with  some  which  come  from  pressure  organs  in  the 
skin.  But  in  all  these  cases  it  would  be  very  difficult 
to  give  names  to  the  qualities  which  these  sensations 
furnish. 

Another  interesting  question  which  comes  up  is,  how 
the  organism  which  weighs,  say  160  pounds,  is  com- 
posed of  rather  softish  materials  in  the  main,  is  on 
the  whole  a  somewhat  pudgy,  floppy  sort  of  thing, 
can  stand  upright  on  its  small  end  and  maintain  that 
position  against  all  sorts  of  odds.  We  know  in  general 
that  it  is  because  the  muscles  hold  the  bony  skeleton 
rigid  that  we  do  not  just  collapse  or  spill  ourselves  in 
a  pile;  but  that  does  not  say  how  the  muscles  know 
when  to  pull  or  how  to  keep  our  balance  even  when 
the  body  is  rigid.  Perhaps  you  have  noticed  that  some 
deaf  people  do  not  walk  with  the  same  grace  as  people 
who  hear,  that  they  weave  from  side  to  side  somewhat 
as  a  drunken  man.  And  you  have  doubtless  yourself 
felt  the  dizzy  confusion  arising  from  a  ride  on  the 
merry-go-round.  These  cases  indicate  that  some  dis- 
turbance somewhere  might  locate  the  source  of  the 
sense  of  balance,  and  the  defect  in  some  cases  of  deaf- 
ness would  indicate  the  source  in  the  ear.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  is  a  part  of  the  ear  mechanism,  though  not 


SO  I  UK  LIFE  OF  MIND 

directly  concerned  with  hearing,  which  enables  us  to 
keep  our  balance.  It  is  the  structure  called  the  semi- 
circular canals.  This  structure  consists  of  three  tubes, 
each  curved  in  a  different  direction,  and  filled  with  a 
liquid.  Within  the  liquid  there  are  floating  particles 
like  gains  of  sand  and  a  structure  which  carries  many- 
nerve  fibers.  When  the  body  moves  in  any  direction. 
the  liquid  in  some  one  of  these  tubes  is  disturbed, 
the  particles  are  thrown  against  the  fibers  and  a  sensa- 
tion is  set  up  which  is  reported  to  the  brain.  Here 
once  more  we  are  not  immediately  conscious  of  any 
peculiar  sense  quality;  consequently,  we  know  of  the 
existence  of  such  "sensations"  only  by  inference  from 
structures  and  relations  in  the  organism  and  its 
movements. 

There  are  other  sensations,  however,  which  are 
clearly  felt  in  consciousness  and  which  have,  so  far  as 
their  quality  is  concerned,  no  connection  with  the  so- 
called  five  senses.  Hunger  is  one  of  these.  Jt  is 
usually  explained  as  due  to  the  contraction  of  the 
walls  of  the  stomach  due  to  its  lack  of  contents.  But 
(he  sensation  of  being  "full"  is  quite  distinct  from  any 
of  the  other  sensations  involving  pressure,  even  though 
the  pressure  may  be  within  the  digestive  tract  itself. 
A  stomach  distended  with  gas  does  not  give  the  same 
feeling  as  one  filled  with  a  good  dinner,  so  there  is 
a  very  definite  sensation  both  of  hunger  and  of  satietv. 
And  T  think  we  should  here  say  that,  altogether  inde- 
pendently of  the  experiences  involved  in  taste,  there 
are  a  lot  of  fine  feelings  connected  with  the  process 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  81 

of  eating,  and  that  they  are  as  capable  of  cultivation 
into  the  rarer  and  finer  natures  as  perhaps  any  other 
sensations.  A  person  who  chooses  carefully  his  foods 
and  limits  his  choices  to  those  that  give  him  most  of 
the  rarest  of  experiences  of  vigor  and  power  and 
capacity  often  gets  called  abstemious  or  merely  queer, 
just  as  one  who  eats  omniverously  and  enjoys  the 
immediate  pleasures  of  eating  is  sometimes  called 
epicurean,  while  both  of  them  may  be  guided  in  the 
most  rational  ways  by  the  sensations  which  are  the 
perfectly  rational  guides  just  because  they  have  not 
been  perverted  by  excess. 

We  might  add  to  this  account  a  number  of  sense 
qualities  which  belong  peculiarly  to  the  sex  function. 
For  purposes  of  strict  psychology  these  might  have 
to  be  confined  to  the  peculiar  sense  qualities  which 
arise  from  the  functioning  of  the  organs  immediately 
concerned.  Here  as  in  so  many  other  cases  we  would 
be  at  a  loss  for  appropriate  names  for  qualities,  so 
poor  is  language  in  adequate  forms  of  expression  for 
those  experiences  which  we  know  most  intimately 
that  we  might  accept  the  cynical  definition  of  lan- 
guage as  that  which  obscures  thought,  and  little  of  a 
strictly  scientific  character  could  be  done  until  appro- 
priate forms  of  expression  were  formulated. 

It  seems  here  the  place  to  say  that  many  of  the 
facts  connected  with  sex  in  such  experiences  as  those 
involved  in  mating,  courting,  home-building,  etc.,  are 
not   sensations  properly  so-called,  but  rather  percep 
lions,  or  interpretations  built  upon  sensations  but   in- 


82  '  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

volving  other  processes  than  sensation. 

SUMMARY. 

It  is  now  time  to  bring  together  in  brief  space  the 
fundamental  facts  which  our  discussion  has  brought 
to  light.  We  saw  that  in  addition  to  the  "five"  senses 
there  are  an  indefinite  number  of  other  fields  of  sensa- 
tion where  definite  qualities  can  be  described.  These 
include  organic  sensations,  strains,  hunger,  thirst,  sex, 
etc.  In  taking  the  five,  one  at  a  time,  we  saw  that 
in  connection  with  sight  there  were  the  general  facts 
of  color  and  brightness.  There  are  four  primary 
colors  which  seem  to  range  themselves  in  two  pairs, 
and  an  indefinite  but  very  great  number  of  other  color 
qualities.  Also  there  are  a  great  number  of  bright- 
nesses or  grays  which  seem  to  turn  about  white-black 
as  a  base.  Then  there  are  other  qualities  which  in- 
volve relations  of  grays  with  colors.  In  the  case  of 
hearing  we  saw  the  first  distinction  to  be  that  between 
tones  and  noises.  And  for  tones  we  found  three  quali- 
ties, pitch,  timbre,  and  intensity,  with  a  vast  variety 
of  combinations  of  these.  In  the  case  of  noise,  the 
nature  of  which  we  found  to  be  essentially  discordant 
and  irregular,  it  was  as  a  consequence  difficult  to  find 
any  clear  lines  of  classification.  In  the  case  of  touch 
we  found  natural  divisions  between  sensations  of  con- 
tact and  sensations  of  temperature.  Of  the  one  there 
were  two  qualities,  pressure,  or  contact,  or  touch 
proper,  and  pain.  Of  the  other,  qualities  of  warmth 
and  cold.     In  taste  we  found  less  clearness  of  distinc- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MINI)  83 

tion  between  qualities,  but  four  can  be  made  out  fairly 
well  as  sweet,  sour,  salt,  and  bitter.  There  was  least 
definiteness  in  the  case  of  smell,  although  the  qualities 
are  as  rich  as  in  any  other  field,  but  we  cannot  name 
them  in  any  adequate  way.  Indefiniteness  also  seems 
to  be  the  word  with  respect  to  sensations  of  organic 
origin,  hunger,  thirst,  sex,  etc.,  but  here  also  we  in- 
sisted that  the  qualities  are  just  as  clearly  known  and 
their  importance  just  as  great  as  in  any  other  field 
of  sense. 

We  noted  in  passing  also  certain  general  character- 
istics of  sensations.  It  was  observed  that  excess  of 
stimulation  will  result  in  fatigue  of  the  sense,  and 
long  continued  excess  may  result  in  destruction  of 
the  sense  organ.  Disease  may  destroy  the  senses  by 
destroying  the  organs  through  which  they  find  expres- 
sion, and  it  seems  that  certain  entanglements  of  our 
ideas  may  distort  sense  qualities  as  in  insanity.  Of 
very  much  more  consequence,  however,  is  the  fact 
that  all  sense  qualities  take  form  in  space  and  time, 
and  it  is  perhaps  through  these  aspects  that  sensations 
come  to  mean  objects;  that  is,  it  is  through  the  com- 
plications of  the  space  and  time  characters  that  sensa- 
tions come  into  their  full  meanings  as  unities  of 
experience  that  we  call  objects. 

It  is  with  these  objects  that  the  rest  of  our  dis- 
cussion will  be  concerned.  All  the  conscious  life  be- 
yond the  immediate  quality-experience  of  sensation  is 
made  up  of  these  objects  in  the  various  relations  into 
which    experience   throws    them.      The   discussion    of 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

them  will  be  somewhat  difficult,  but  anyone  of  ordi 
nary  capacity  who  possesses  any  degree  of  real  interest 
can  follow  if  he  cares  to.  The  difficulty,  in  its  most 
general  aspect,  lies  in  the  fact  that  these  objects  are 
capable  of  two  seemingly  varying  interpretations  at 
any  and  every  point  in  the  entire  discussion.  They 
may,  on  the  one  hand,  be  regarded  as  external,  factual, 
extra-conscious,  self-subsistent,  socially  instituted  and 
permanently  fixed  forms,  to  which  our  inner  processes 
of  experience  more  or  less  roughly  correspond.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  may  be  regarded  as  internal  in  that 
they  all  carry  mutual  references  to  each  other  and  to 
the  relations  within  the  whole  which  they  form;  as 
internally  self-conscious  and  factual  in  that  they  sub- 
sist in  and  through  the  principles  which  order  them 
into  unity;  as  socially  constituted  as  permanently 
flexible  growth-forms  which  do  not  correspond  to  but 
embody  the  inner  processes  of  experience  in  an  ob- 
jective world. 


PART  II. 

ATTENTION  AS  MEMORY. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

MEMORY,   OR  ATTENTION   AS   RETENTION. 

The  second  stage  in  the  life  of  attention  is  memory. 
We  have  seen  how  perception  is  the  first  stage  of 
attentive  experience  in  that  it  is  the  experience  in 
which  we  are  in  immediate  contact  with  the  objects 
of  the  external  world.  We  saw  that  perception  as  an 
experience  has  two  sides  which  can  be  clearly  marked 
off  from  each  other,  the  one  of  them  being  the  raw 
stuff  of  fact  which  we  called  sensation,  and  the  other 
an  act  of  mind  by  which  sensory  facts  are  ordered 
into  usable  shapes.  This  act  of  mind  we  saw  to  be 
the  characteristic  active  experience  element  which  we 
called  feeling.  Thus  feeling  is  the  active  or  growth 
element  in  the  life  of  mind.  It  is  this  latter  which  is 
the  natural  function,  hence  we  called  it  perception 
proper;  while  to  sensation  we  gave  a  place  as  a  partial 
element  within  the  perceptive  process,  because  by  itself 
it  does  not  represent  a  complete  experience.  Percep-  / 
tion,  then,  is  the  simplest  of  complete  experiences. 

Now  our  question  is,  What  is  the  experience  which 
is  next  more  complete  than  perception?  Somewhere 
we  shall  have  to  raise  a  much  more  interesting  and 
more  difficult  and  important  question  about  the  rela- 
tion which  holds  between  any  two  types  of  experi- 
ences, and  among  all  of  them  when  taken  together  as 
the  whole  of  life.  Let  it  be  enough  to  say  at  this 
point  that  we  shall  call  this  relation  the  growth  rela- 


86  THE  LIKE  OF  'MIND 

tion,  but  we  shall  have  to  take  time  somewhere  to 
explain  what  that  means.  The  next  more  complete 
experience  after  perception  is,  then,  that  into  which 
perception  grows.  And  it  is  possible  to  call  it  by  a 
variety  of  names,  and  the  psychologists  differ  as  to 
the  appropriate  one.  But  we,  being  guided  by  the 
experiences  of  ordinary  people,  need  only  to  look  to 
the  facts  as  we  find  them  in  our  own  minds,  and  to 
names  as  we  find  them  in  ordinary  language.  We  can 
then  say  that  the  next  account  which  we  have  of  a 
percept  after  its  first  completing  itself  in  our  minds 
is  its  reappearance  on  some  other  occasion  without 
any  pronounced  or  direct  connection  with  the  sensory 
raw  material  which  was  part  of  its  being  when  it  first 
appeared.  It  has  come  back  in  our  minds  now  with 
its  qualities  somewhat  subdued,  as  a  rule,  its  color, 
form,  hardness,  coldness,  etc.,  do  not  now  appear  as 
its  very  most  real  nature,  but  its  qualities  take  a  back 
seat,  as  it  were,  in  favor  of  the  meaning  of  the  percept 
taken  as  a  whole,  which  now  stands  out  prominently 
in  the  center  of  attention.  It  is  true  that  the  experi- 
ence has  a  certain  vague  form  of  an  object  in  space 
for  most  of  us,  but  that  is  merely  because. most  of  us 
think  in  terms  of  what  we  see  rather  than  in  terms 
of  what  we  experience  in  and  through  the  other  senses. 
But  regardless  of  which  sense  the  experience  may  first 
have  come  to  us  in,  its  real  nature  stands  there  in  our 
mind  as  a  solid  meaning  around  which  the  sense  quali- 
ties now  drape  and  linger  as  the  worn-out  and  thread- 
bare garments  which  mark  the  outlines  of  its  vague 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  87 

form. 

The  percept  has  thus  grown  into  an  image  by  the 
casting  off  of  its  immediate  dependence  upon  the 
sensory  raw  fact.  You  have  the  experience  now  with- 
out any  direct  contact  with  the  object.  It  has  grown 
through  a  stage  where  what  was  before  the  very  heart 
of  it  has  become  the  protective  covering  for  its  new- 
offspring,  the  budding  meaning.  The  meaning  is  the 
beginning  of  a  type  of  values,  which  along  with  other 
value-types  will  make  up  the  degree  of  worth  of  a 
conscious  life.  /  The  protective  skeleton  or  framework 
for  such  experiences,  the  original  sensory  fact-solidity, 
is  protective  and  supportive  of  the  value  aspect  in 
that  it  is  to  it  that  reference  must  be  made  when 
values  tend  to  run  confusedly  together/It  is  this 
growth  of  a  percept  into  an  image  then  that  is  meant 
by  the  process  called  memory,  and  the  description  of 
memory  is  nothing  more  than  an  account  of  what 
happens  to  and  through  these  images  as  they  prepare 
for  further  growth  stages  into  other  and  higher  forms 
of  experience./ 

The  image  is  then  a  common  fact-form  for  many 
of  the  higher  conscious  attentive  processes,  and  in  its 
active  aspects  will  become  very  important  as  the  ele- 
ment of  imagination  in  inference.  But  so  far  as  mem- 
ory is  concerned,  and  considering  memory  as  separate 
from  imagination,  which  must  be  recognized  as  doing 
violence  to  fact,  the  image  is  the  more  or  less  passive 
and  inert  instrument  through  which  the  mind  accom- 
plishes  its  purposes  in   building   up   its   loftier   struc- 


88  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

lures.  The  image  is  then  the  fact  of  the  meaning  of 
a  percept,  which,  as  a  meaning,  stands  out  so  clearly 
as  to  overshadow  the  sensory  fact  upon  which  it  rests. 
When  we  deal  with  images  we  may  therefore  ignore 
the  question  as  to  whether  the  image  had  its  birth 
as  the  meaning  of  a  visual  or  auditory  or  any  other 
sensation.  Hence  it  is  independent  of  any  particular 
sensory  connection,  even  though  the  fact  that  it  does 
depend  upon  sense  connections  may  be  and  is  impor- 
tant in  many  ways  .  But  as  the  image  lives  and  works 
in  consciousness  it  bears  no  striking  evidence  of  its 
origin  in  sensation  at  all.  It  has  become  a  free  fact; 
its  historical  connection  with  sensory  raw  fact  is  unim- 
portant to  it,  even  though  it  is  interesting  to  psychol- 
ogists to  know  its  natural  history  and  its  maternal 
|  ancestry. 

The  ordinary  account  of  memory,  therefore,  which 
appears  to  make  of  memory  nothing  more  than  the 
shuffling  about  of  dried-out  and  hardened  percepts,  of 
placing  and  replacing  meaningless  counters  in  a  still 
more  meaningless  game  of  mental  checkers,  tells  us 
nothing  of  the  work  of  the  mind.  Or,  at  best  it  merely 
tells  us  of  the  dreary,  dusty  mind  of  the  psychologist. 
We  do  not  mean  by  memory  the  reaching  back  into 
the  dark  and  smelly  storerooms  of  the  past  and  raking 
out  an  old  neglected  form  merely  to  blow  the  dust  off 
it  and  fit  it  into  a  place  which  we  know  in  advance 
would  just  exactly  contain  it.  Memory  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  past;  it  is  concerned  with  the  act  of 
the  mind   now  involved   in   the  realizing  of  a   percept 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  89 

as  a  meaning  or  image.  The  fact  that  the  same,  or,  to 
be  exact,  a  similar,  process  had  taken  place  previously 
is  not  a  mystery — that  same  thing  happens  every  time 
memory  acts.  But  memory  does  not  imply  that  a 
percept  once  consciously  in  existence  lost  its  being 
and  existence  and  then  recovered  it  again.  It,  if  lost, 
would  not  be  there  to  recover  itself;  the  whole  theory 
of  memory  is  contradictory,  and  the  mind,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  it,  is  a  hopeless  mystery. 

We  have  defined  memory  then  as  the  process 
whereby  a  perceptual  experience  grows  into  an  image. 
In  the  negative  aspect  of  the  case,  this  is  accom- 
plished by  sloughing  off  the  hard  crudeness  of 
sensation.  As  a  positive  fact,  it  is  accomplished 
through  the  perceptive  unity  attaining  such  a  degree 
of  clearness  as  to  stand  forth  as  a  meaning  on  its 
own  account.  It  does  not  imply  "remembering/'  if 
by  that  we  mean  a  lapse  of  time  or  the  recovery  of 
something  we  haven't  got.  There  may  very  well  be 
time  which  is  passing  while  these  events  are  happen- 
ing, but  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  process  or  the 
outcome.  For  consciousness,  at  least,  time  is  a  mere 
spectator  of  life.  The  later  end  of  an  experience 
does  not  differ  from  the  earlier  by  its  being  in  a  dif- 
ferent time.  It  differs  by  being  a  new  fact,  and  the 
distinctive  memory  aspect  of  the  situation  consists  in 
the  new  fact's  carrying  a  reference  to  the  old.  It  thus 
implies  the  growth  connection,  and  when  we  say  that 
what  it  is  it  just  now  ivas,  we  do  not  mean  that  what  it 
was  ceased  to  be  and  there  supervened  the  what  it  is. 


90  THE  LIKE  OF  MIND 

This  is  of  course  nonsense.  The  fact  is  that  a  fact 
has  shifted  emphasis  of  its  quality;  what  was  essen- 
tially sensation-stuff  in  its  first  appearance  now  is 
meaning.  The  fact  has  universalized  itself  out  of  its 
old  skin  and  has  left  its  bright  color  appearing  essen- 
tially not  as  color,  but  as  brightness.  If  we  insist  on 
the  now-then  character  of  memory  we  shall  have 
trouble  later  with  its  more  complex  growth  stages. 
//  the  shift  of  quality  had  been  more  leisurely  and 
deliberate,  we  should  have  been  obliged  to  call  the 
process  inference.  But  as  it  is  direct  and  whole  and 
immediate  in  quality,  not  showing  any  spectral  lines 
between  qualities,  it  is  necessary  to  regard  the  process 
as  relatively  simple,  for  when  it  appears  as  complex 
it  has  other  qualities  and  these  require  us  to  recog- 
nize it  as  a  further  growth  stage. 

Let  us  now  give  an  illustration  of  the  fact  of  mem- 
ory, leaving  the  "facts"  of  memory  to  the  experts. 
Recall  the  house  in  which  you  were  born.  A  distinct 
colored  form  may  arise  at  once  in  your  mind.  Let 
us  say  it  is  square,  is  two  stories  high,  and  painted 
white.  You  say  you  see  it  as  clearly  as  if  it  stood 
before  you  in  material  fact.  The  only  way  it  differs 
from  the  experience  you  would  have  if  you  were  within 
fifty  yards  of  it  on  a  clear  day  is  that  you  know  that 
the  house  is  not  present.  But  that,  mind  you,  is  not 
any  part  of  your  present  experience;  that  is,  your 
knowing  that  the  house  is  not  there  before  you  is  no 
essential  part  of  the  experience  of  the  house.  That 
is  something  else,  maybe  a  mere  association,  perhaps 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  91 

an  inference,  but  it  is  not  a  part  of  the  experience  of 
the  house  you  recall.  If  the  clearness  of  the  sensory 
aspects  of  the  house,  color,  form,  arrangement  of 
parts,  etc.,  were  the  important  fact,  as  they  are  in 
your  experience  now,  you  would,  from  your  own  point 
of  view,  perceive  the  house,  regardless  of  what  you 
may  know  of  its  present  location  when  you  are  not 
perceiving  the  house.  The  fact  is,  that  your  experi- 
ence is  so  far  perceptive,  and  the  necessary  nervous 
and  other  processes  will  perhaps  be  there  to  maintain 
its  sensory  body  for  you.  Your  experience  is,  so  far, 
merely  another  perception  of  the  house,  where  the 
original  organic  processes  have  reinstated  themselves 
through  speech  or  other  habit-forms.-  The  real  mem- 
ory image  comes  when  the  color,  form,  etc.,  of  the 
house  begin  to  give  way  as  vague  personal  and  other 
types  of  relations  begin  to  form  in  your  mind,  and  if 
in  the  midst  of  these  relations  you  will  catch  yourself 
up,  you  will  find  that  there  was  no  house  there  at  all 
in  terms  of  color  and  form. 

Your  memory  has  now  supplied  you  with  the  house 
as  a  meaning  and  it  does  not  have  such  qualities  as 
squareness,  whiteness,  now.  The  house  has  grown 
from  the  mere  accidental  and  incidental  sensory  fact 
into  a  whole  of  value,  and  it  would  be  a  profanation 
of  it  now  to  "see"  it  as  colored  form.  Or,  its  white- 
ness may  appear  to  you  now  as  a  drooping,  weeping 
angel,  the  house  now  coming  to  mean  the  "place" 
where  your  mother  died.  This  relation  invests  the 
house  with  value,  not  color.     But  if  you  go  very  far 


92  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

from  this  point  and  in  this  direction  you  memory  has 
grown  into  the  next  higher  stage  of  experience  which 
we  would  in  this  new  aspect  call  imagination. 

These  matters  are  somewhat  difficult,  but  it  is  neces- 
sary to  see  that  by  memory  we  .do  not  mean  the 
stacking  away  of  job  lots  of  assorted  images  upon 
which  we  may  draw  when  we  get  hard  up  for  "asso- 
ciations." It  does  not  mean  that  an  image  which 
was  once  in  my  mind,  but  which  was  bumped  off  the 
stage  by  a  more  aggressive  or  a  more  efficient  image, 
now  reappears  to  claim  the  place  again  and  just  as 
uncourteously  kicks  out  the  image  which  is  now  there, 
and  holds  the  place  until  frisked  away  again  by  an- 
other still  more  vigorous.  This  sort  of  thing  is  of 
course  nonsense,  but  it  is  useful  in  making  psychology 
"simple.'' 

What,  then,  are  the  different  elements  in  the  expe- 
rience of  memory?  It  is  customary  to  describe  them 
under  the  names  of  learning,  retention,  recall,  and 
recognition.  But  if  our  account  of  the  facts  is  any- 
thing like  true,  retention  is  not  worth  much  of  our 
time.  It  used  to  be  asked  where  and  how  images 
were  retained  during  the  times  they  were  not  in  use. 
They  are  not  the  sorts  of  things  that  are  anywhere; 
that  is,  it  is  of  no  consequence  to  try  to  describe  them 
by  such  phrases  as  imply  their  being  put  in  a  pigeon- 
hole or  laid  upon  a  shelf  or  tied  to  a  post.  We  have 
just  seen  that  they  do  not  last  through  time  as  if  their 
mere  persistence  were  somehow  important,  nor  is  their 
reality  guaranteed  bv  their  staying  where  they  are  put. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  93 

Time  is  a  quality  of  memory;  it  is  not  the  place  where 
memory  romps  and  grows  irresponsible.  The  whole 
matter  of  retention  serves  only  to  misrepresent  the 
nature  of  memory,  and  to  confuse  our  ideas  with 
respect  to  the  nature  of  mind.  We  will  therefore  drop 
the  whole  matter,  since  there  is  no  fact  upon  which 
we  may  rest. 

There  are  then  three  phases  of  the  memory  process, 
and  we  must  take  them  up  one  at  a  time  and  show 
how  rhemory  is  one  aspect  at  least  of  the  growth  of 
the  life  of  the  mind.  The  other  characteristically 
growth  aspect  of  the  mind-life  is  imagination,  which 
we  will  discuss  in  its  place.  We  have  then  in  mem- 
ory (1)  learning,  (2)   recall,  (3)  recognition. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

(1)     MEMORY  AS   LEARNING. 

We  arc  by  this  time  prepared  to  say  that  learning 
is  not  merely  getting  or  "having"  sensations.  And 
we  could  go  on  to  say,  if  this  were  the  place  to  show 
up  the  stupidity  and  futility  of  the  whole  educational 
system  and  program,  that  the  sooner  we  realize  that 
just  that  is  what  our  alleged  education  means  the 
better  for  us  in  every  way. 

What  we  wish  to  do  is  to  get  on  the  inside  of  the 
learning  process  to  see  if  it  can  be  controlled  so  as  to 
work  to  better  advantage.  What  we  have  to  see  if 
we  are  to  understand  it  is  a  trait  of  experience  that  is 
rather  hard  to  get  under  our  hand.  Let  us  put  off 
for  a  while  the  naming  of  this  trait,  and  see  if  we  can 
sort  out  the  facts  in  a  situation  where  learning  is 
going  on.  You  set  out  to  learn  the  multiplication 
table  or  a  poem,  or  how7  to  do  something  that  involves 
control  of  the  hands.  Let  us  take  the  latter  case  first, 
that  of  learning  how  to  do  something  with  the  hands, 
although  it  is  more  abstract  and  difficult  than  the 
others.  What  we  shall  have  to  take  for  granted  is 
that  the  movements  and  forms  described  by  the  hands 
are  just  the  outside  faces  of  the  ideas  in  our  minds, 
so  intimately  are  our  mental  processes  and  our  physi- 
cal processes  bound  together.  We  are,  let  us  say, 
making  a  table.    We  have  before  us  various  pieces  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  95 

wood,  which  are  as  yet  not  shaped,  and  as  many  tools 
as  we  need.  But  already  we  have  a  start  on  the  job, 
since  we  have  agreed  to  make  a  table.  This  already 
means  that  if  a  given  board  is  twelve  feet  long  we 
shall  have  to  cut  it  into  shorter  lengths;  that  if  our 
boards  are  rough  surfaced  from  the  sawing  we  shall 
have  to  dress  them  smooth;  that  if  our  boards  are 
all  one  inch  in  thickness  we  shall  have  to  glue  some  of 
them  together  for  the  thick  legs;  that  if  the  boards 
are  all  a  foot  wide  some  will  have  to  be  ripped  into 
four  or  six-inch  strips,  and  so  on.  That  is,  the  mean- 
ing we  call  a  table,  when  brought  into  the  presence  of 
its  materials,  begins  to  build  itself  out  by  bringing 
into  prominence  the  sensory  facts  which  were  origi- 
nally strong  in  it.  The  meaning  becomes  a  pattern- 
plan  and  breaks  itself  up  into  its  original  sensory 
parts.  This  process  of  breaking  up  of  course  follows 
the  suggestions  given  by  the  presented  materials.  And 
what  happens  is  that  soon  we  see  the  pile  of  boards 
standing  before  us  as  a  table,  and  lacking  only  the 
addition  of  the  muscular  movements  involved  in  cut- 
ting and  dressing  of  parts  to  make  it  as  embodied  fact 
correspond  exactly  to  the  table  which  we  "had  in 
mind." 

Learning  in  this  case  is  then  merely  a  dissolving 
of  a  realized  meaning  back  into  its  sensation  elements, 
and  the.  reconstructing  of  these  sensation  elements 
into  a  new  form  through  the  active  muscular  processes. 
The  form  is  a  new  one  just  because  it  images  its  quali- 
ties  more   vividly   or   more  artistically   or   more   sub 


96  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

stantially,  depending  upon  the  general  trend  of  pur- 
poses which  get  expressed  in  the  plan.  If  there  is  in 
my  plan  a  suggestion  of  strength,  then  the  table  top 
becomes  in  my  mind  immediately  thick  and  rigid,  the 
legs  suddenly  grow  stout  and  heavy  and  straight  and 
well  braced  against  each  other.  If  in  my  plan  there 
is  a  hint  of  grace,  then  the  top  becomes  light  and  its 
color  gay,  the  legs  curve  as  if  to  dance  to  the  music 
of  the  violin  which  must  lie  upon  the  table  almost  as 
a  part  of  it.  The  leg  sticks  a  toe  out  teasingly  toward 
the  piano  as  if  to  ask  that  the  music  begin,  and  you 
would  not  touch  the  keys  too  strongly  lest  the  table 
should  become  tipsy  with  the  joy  of  its  jig. 

But  to  come  now  to  the  multiplication  table.  You 
already  have  had  some  of  the  relations  of  numbers, 
since  you  could  not  live  long  enough  to  get  into  school 
without  them.  This  of  course  does  not  mean  that  you 
have  merely  learned  to  parrot  the  names  of  numbers 
and  their  relations.  Then  all  there  is  involved  in 
learning  the  multiplication  table  is  an  extension  of 
some  of  the  aspects  of  mind  that  are  already  there. 
This  is  the  place  perhaps  to  explain  the  trait  men- 
tioned above.  It  is  a  habit  of  the  mind  never  to  lose 
anything  that  has  had  a  meaning.  For,  once  having 
experienced  a  meaning,  the  mind  goes  forward  with 
the  meaning  as  a  basis  and  means  to  the  appreciation 
and  estimation  of  other  things.  But  this  means  that 
the  meaning  becomes  an  element  common  to  many 
things  and  tends  to  throw  together  into  kinds  the 
things   among  which   it   holds.      But   this  means   that 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  97 

experience  is  cumulative,  that  it  keeps  what  it  has 
and  organizes  with,  what  it  keeps  all  fitting  new  forms 
that  come  into  view.  This  trait  of  cumulativeness  is 
then  the  explanation  of  learning,  not  because  it  is  a 
mysterious  cause  or  force,  but  because  it  is  the  ever- 
present  fact  in  every  case  of  learning.  It  is  the  char- 
acteristic result  of  the  process  of  memory  as  the  cumu- 
lative tendency  of  mind,  and  is  both  the  instrument 
and  the  end  of  learning.  Memory,  then,  means  accum- 
ulation, and  accumulation  means  the  unifying  into 
meanings  of  the  facts  that  have  become  general  to 
experience.  Learning,  then,  is  the  assimilation  of  new 
presented  fact  with  the  mind's  law  of  unity.  The  full 
explanation  of  this  cumulative  trait  is  not  a  matter 
for  psychology,  hence  we  pass  it  here.  Like  all  other 
ultimate  questions,  it  is  a  matter  for  metaphysics. 

Since  learning  is  dependent  upon  the  cumulative 
effects  of  memory,  it  becomes  primarily  a  question  of 
emphasizing  some  practical  rules  for  dealing  with  the 
stuff  to  be  learned.  The  more  important  of  these 
suggestions  follow. 

( 1 )  The  greater  the  number  of  times  you  repeat 
or  go  over  the  stuff  you  are  learning  the  more  accu- 
rate and  dependable  your  memory  is  likely  to  be. 
Memory,  like  all  other  aspects  of  mind,  is  created  and 
sustained  through  its  objects.  This  shows  that  the 
old-fashioned  way  of  "saying  our  lessons'1  was  not 
altogether  bad,  and  perhaps  much  better  than  some 
modern  methods  which  tend  to  lessen  the  effort  of  the 
learner.     We  forget  that  it  is  only  through  his  own 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

ell  oris  l  It  (it  one  is  educated,  and  that  no  finishing- 
school  methods  of  "polish''  or  "culture"  will  ever 
get  under  the  hide  where  the  character  of  the  indi- 
vidual can  be  affected. 

( 2  )  The  longer  the  subject-matter  and  the  more 
difficult  it  is,  the  more  times  you  have  to  "say  over" 
the  lesson.  This  of  course  means  that  you  must  have 
your  mind  on  the  work  as  you  go  over  it,  otherwise 
your  mere  repeating  it  in  words  will  not  do  much 
good.  The  most  serious  difficulty  in  learning  comes 
from  the  great  number  of  possible  distractions  which 
may  divide  the  attention.  So  this  rule  says  repeat 
and  repeat  and  repeat,  and  concentrate;  and  ignore 
the  things  you  are  not  supposed  to  be  learning.  Repe- 
tition keeps  the  general  meaning  present  to  the  mind. 

(3)  Learning  is  much  more  successful  if  the  mat- 
ter to  be  learned  is  broken,  up  into  groups.  Work  a 
number  of  ideas  into  a  small  group  of  some  kind,  any 
kind,  and  these  groups  will  be  found  to  be  more  easily 
learned  than  single  ideas.  The  reason  is  that  the 
relations  that  get  fixed  between  images  make  the  group 
a  whole  or  unity  which  has  a  definite  meaning.  And 
stuff  with  a  meaning  is  more  successfully  learned  than 
stuff  that  has  no  definite  meaning.  In  fact,  the  only 
real  learning  is  the  learning  of  meanings;  the  learning 
of  mere  froms  is  training,  and  is  appropriate  to  sol- 
diers and  animals  that  do  not  have  a  mind. 

(4)  Throw  these  groups  into  rhythmic  forms  by 
giving  certain  parts  emphasis  or  accent.  This  is  the 
natural  method  of  learning,  as  you  will  notice  in  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  99 

case  of  small  children  learning  poems  by  heart.  Chil- 
dren sing  the  material,  and  if  they  are  given  the  free- 
dom of  movement  which  they  should  have  they  will 
dance  it,  or  represent  it  through  swaying  the  body  or 
the  head,  or  they  may  beat  the  time  with  their  hands. 

(5)  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  important  rules  is, 
learn  by  wholes.  This  means  that  in  repeating  mate- 
rial to  be  learned,  go  over  it  as  a  whole,  say  it  all  the 
way  through  without  stopping  to  dwell  upon  the  inter- 
esting or  the  hard  parts.  When  through  once  go  over 
the  whole  again,  and  as  many  times  as  is  necessary. 
After  the  matter  is  learned  as  a  whole  you  may  profit- 
ably put  some  emphasis  upon  the  more  difficult  parts, 
but  you  will  find  that  you  can  learn  a  given  material 
in  less  time  by  the  whole  method. 

(6)  Go  over  the  material  to  be  learned  a  given 
number  of  times  and  then  leave  it  off  for  some  hours, 
or  perhaps  better  until  the  next  day.  In  any  case 
don't  mull  it  over;  don't  repeat  it  until  the  repetitions 
are  mere  empty  sounds.  Lay  it  away  when  it  begins 
to  tangle,  and  come  back  to  it  some  time  later.  A 
reasonable  number  of  repetitions  today  and  the  same 
amount  tomorrow  ought  to  fix  any  ordinary  material 
in  your  mind  as  practically  permanent. 

(7)  The  rate  at  which  you  repeat  should  be  the 
one  natural  to  you,  and  will  vary  somewhat  with 
different  persons.  Perhaps  it  is  best  to  begin  rather 
slowly  and  deliberately  and  then  speed  up  as  you 
warm  up  to  the  subject.  But  nothing  is  gained  by 
putting  in  too  much  time  or  effort,  just  as  nothing  is 


100  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

gained  by  not  taking  time  enough. 

(8)  The  most  important  rule  of  all  is,  give  your 
full  attention  to  the  stuff  you  are  learning.  It  is  true 
that  mere  mechanical  repetition  and  drill  will  do 
something,  but  the  learning  which  is  to  be  funda- 
mental in  one's  life  should  be  that  which  has  the 
fullest  meaning,  and  meanings  are  peculiarly  questions 
of  full  and  undivided  attention.  The  thing  you  will 
find  easiest  to  learn  is  the  thing  to  which  you  give 
your  whole  mind,  the  thing  in  which  you  develop  a 
real  interest.  And  interest  can  be  in  a  large  degree 
controlled  by  the  individual  will;  so  that  the  intention 
to  learn  and  the  interest  in  learning  and  the  will  to 
learn  are  almost  the  same  thing,  and  together  will 
accomplish  whatever  lies  within  human  power  to 
accomplish. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

(ll)     MEMORY  AS   RECALL. 

Another  aspect  of  memory  we  mentioned  as  recall. 
This  we  will  find  will  not  require  any  extended  dis- 
cussion, since  what  we  have  already  said  and  what 
we  shall  have  to  say  in  connection  with  recognition 
will  leave  the  meaning  of  recall  rather  slim. 

The  popular  idea  of  recall  is,  I  suppose,  that  of 
reaching  back  into  the  reserve  stocks  of  images  and 
bringing  forth  the  one  appropriate  to  the  occasion. 
This  has  of  course  a  very  definite  meaning,  and  there 
would  be  no  objection  to  it  if  we  could  keep  our  de- 
scription from  relapsing  into  the  mere  idea  of  shuffling 
about  of  dead  and  inert  objects.  But  if  we  remember 
that  an  image  is  nothing  if  it  is  not  living  and  actively 
affecting  things  along  with  other  images,  such  lan- 
gauge  would  be  seen  to  be  not  altogether  false  so  much 
as  just  inadequate  and  inappropriate  to  the  real  nature 
of  images.  That  is,  such  language  leaves  the  wrong 
impression  as  to  the  nature  of  images.  The  essential 
nature  of  an  image  is  that  of  a  process,  something  that 
is  active  and  continuously  going  on,  which  always 
carries  the  implication  that  something  is  to  be  accom- 
plished. This  is  accordingly  expressed  by  saying  that 
the  image  is  dynamic,  or  active  in  nature  and  not  a 
static  or  fixed  fact,  that  it  is  to  be  thought  of  as  the 
activity    which    makes    one's    whole    experience    hang 


102  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

together,  and  not  a  mere  thing  which  stays  eternally 
what  it  is.  There  are  no  fixed  and  finished  things 
in  the  life  of  the  mind;  things  get  done  and  finished 
only  in  the  external  world.  And  this  is  accomplished 
only  by  stopping  the  process  upon  which  life  depends. 
What  recall  really  means  then  is  the  finding  of 
processes  in  experience  which  have  not  been  making 
themselves  obtrusive,  but  have  been  going  on  unob- 
served behind  the  screen  of  attention.  That  there 
are  real  "doings"  that  do  not  appear,  that  there  are 
real  processes  which  do  not  occupy  the  spotlight  of 
attention,  is  easily  demonstrated  by  very  many  facts. 
You  sometimes  just  wake  up  and  find  yourself  think- 
ing about  something  and  can  give  no  explanation  of 
how  it  got  into  your  mind,  you  can  see  no  connection 
between  what  is  in  your  mind  and  what  had  just  now 
been  going  on  there,  but  has  disappeared.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  you  did  not  know  all  of  what  had  been 
going  on  in  your  mind.  Some  facts  had  been  in 
process  without  your  knowing  anything  about  it,  and 
often  you  cannot  tell  what  they  are  even  when  you 
stop  to  try  to  rake  them  up  into  your  clear  attention. 
The  natural  course  of  your  mind  involves  besides  those 
factors  which  stand  out  clearly  many  other  processes 
which  possibly  never  get  into  the  attention  at  all. 
Think  how  much  of  the  water  in  a  flowing  river  per- 
haps never  comes  to  the  top  where  the  sunlight  can 
play  upon  it,  but  you  will  see  that  any  drop  of  water, 
however  deeply  buried  in  the  stream  it  may  be,  may 
come  to  the  top  if  there  is  some  reason  why  it  should. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  103 

The  stream  of  mind  in  the  same  way  carries  many 
undercurrents,  processes  which  may  never  come  to  the 
surface,  but  which  upon  the  proper  occasion  may  not 
only  reach  the  top  but  find  the  most  prominent  place 
of  all.  This  means,  of  course,  that  our  mind  is  made 
up  of  many,  many  images  of  many  very  different 
kinds,  and  that  any  one  of  them  may  become  the 
most  important  of  them  all  for  any  given  purpose. 

There  are  two  questions  about  recall  which  we  ought 
to  answer.  One  is,  just  how  does  an  obscure  and  for- 
gotten image  manage  to  get  back  into  the  attention, 
and  the  other  is,  just  what  do  we  mean  by  controlling 
the  attention,  as  we  seem  to  imply  when  we  tell  some- 
body to  try  to  attend  or  "pay  attention,"  or  to  recall 
or  remember  something. 

For  the  answer  to  the  first  question  we  simply  need 
to  refer  to  things  we  have  already  said  about  images. 
We  saw  that  an  image  is  itself  made  up  of  many  dif- 
ferent parts,  and  there  is  nothing  to  hinder  that  one 
of  these  parts  of  a  given  image  may  also  be  a  part  of 
another  image  at  the  same  time.  The  fact  that  one 
apple  is  red  does  not  prevent  the  same  redness  from 
being  a  quality  of  another  apple,  or  the  fact  that  one 
man  is  tall  does  not  give  him  a  monopoly  on  tallness, 
for  tallness  may  belong  also  to  trees.  This  fact  we 
describe  when  we  take  up  association.  But  here  we 
are  explaining  how  recall  takes  place.  If  you  should 
begin  to  talk  to  me  about  a  very,  very  tall  man,  it 
would  be  quite  likely  that  I  might  think  of  a  tree 
which  had   been   prominent   in  my   mind  because  of 


104  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

its  tallness;   the  image  of  a  tall  man  may  bring  up 

the  image  of  a  tall  tree.  Then  our  images  are  all 
bound  together  in  a  way  such  that  they  move  as 
groups,  and  when  one  of  a  group  is  "brought  into  the 
mind"  the  tendency  is  for  the  whole  group  to  which 
it  belongs  to  follow  into  the  full  glare  of  attention. 
As  we  have  elsewhere  remarked,  our  images  come  to 
us  in  groups  in  our  first  experiences  of  them,  and  these 
groups  tend  to  remain  unbroken  throughout  our  lives 
or  until  dissolved  by  old  age  or  mental  derangements 
of  whatever  kinds.  We  might  have  defined  learning 
in  the  previous  section  as  the  process  of  determining 
what  and  what  kinds  of  groupings  we  wish  to  make 
our  images  fall  into,  and  the  further  process  of  welding 
our  images  solidly  together  in  such  groups  as  would 
remain  permanently  in  our  minds. 

The  second  question  is  somewhat  more  difficult  to 
explain  or  to  illustrate,  since  it  seems  to  involve  the 
mystery  of  "will."  But  we  may  depend  upon  the 
same  fundamental  facts  in  this  case  as  we  did  in  the 
case  of  the  other  question,  namely,  the  fact  that  our 
images  always  tend  to  fall  into  groups  when  they  first 
come  to  us,  or  rather  they  come  to  us  in  and  as  groups, 
and  tend  to  remain  in  these  groups  afterwards.  The 
fact  of  attention  itself  means  that  some  of  the  elements 
from  some  of  these  groups  make  up  the  center  around 
which  our  life  processes  are  organized  at  any  given 
time,  and  that  some  such  center  with  some  similar 
organization  persists  throughout  the  whole  stretch  of 
our  waking  life.     The  center  is  differently  made  up 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  105 

at  different  moments;  that  is,  the  elements  which 
occupy  the  center  change  and  give  way  constantly  to 
others,  but  the  center  maintains  the  same  general  sort 
of  organization  at  all  times,  and  the  elements  main- 
tain their  connections  with  the  groups  to  which  they 
naturally  belong.  The  result  then  is  that  each  image 
which  comes  into  the  attention  has  vaguely  attaching 
to  it  all  the  other  members  of  its  group.  It  is  then 
possible  to  pass  from  the  image  that  is  clear  in  my 
attention  to  any  of  the  vague  elements  with  which  it 
is  connected,  and  the  one  to  which  we  pass  will  be 
determined  by  the  general  set  of  logical  and  physical 
conditions  surrounding  us.  But  these  conditions  are 
just  the  facts  which  in  part  make  up  our  environment, 
and  are  under  our  control  and  we  can  change  them, 
for  the  most  part,  at  will.  As  such  facts  they  are 
connected  with  the  elements  which  make  up  our  minds, 
and  through  their  control  we  control  the  facts  that 
form  the  make-up  of  our  minds,  we  thus  determine 
what  facts  shall  pass  through  the  form  and  focus  of 
attention.  To  put  it  briefly,  we  control  the  facts 
which  occupy  our  attention  through  the  connections 
which  these  facts  bear  to  other  facts  both  in  our  minds 
and  within  our  outside  environments.  This  matter  will 
come  up  again  when  we  undertake  to  explain  will. 

One  other  thing  we  ought  to  notice  before  we  pass 
on.  We  have  remarked  that  the  popular  theory  of 
memory  implies  that  memory  is  characteristically  con- 
cerned with  the  past,  and  that  its  function  is  pri- 
marily to  dig  up  the  past  and  to  bring  the  products 


106  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

of  its  explorations  into  the  consciousness  of  the 
present.  It  is  thus  supposed  to  make  connections 
between  the  present  and  the  past,  and  thus  to  tie 
together  all  the  phases  of  our  experience.  But  we 
have  noticed  that  memory  has  to  do  with  the  past 
only  in  a  figurative  sense,  that  the  past  in  so  far  as 
it  is  a  fact  of  memory  becomes  merely  a  presupposi- 
tion about  the  present.  And  since  psychology  does 
not  know  what  to  do  with  presuppositions,  does  not  in 
fact  comprehend  the  difference  between  a  presupposi- 
tion and  a  fact  of  a  different  order,  this  situation 
has  itself  made  a  large  part  of  the  mystery  which 
surrounds  both  memory  and  will.  The  mere  descrip- 
tion of  the  facts  of  recall  should,  it  seems,  be  suffi- 
cient to  explode  the  o!d  conceptions  of  memory  and 
will,  and  it  will  be  a  very  important  event  when  both 
of  these  terms  can  be  used  without  the  smug  assump- 
tion that  the  appeal  to  mystical  "spontaneity"  explains 
the  facts  to  which  we  give  the  names  memory  and 
will.  But  "association"  also  does  not  explain  these  facts. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

(ill)     MEMORY  AS  RECOGNITION. 

We  come  now  to  what  is  really  the  most  interesting 
as  well  as  the  most  important  of  the  facts  of  memory, 
important  in  that  it  shows  the  memory  process  com- 
pleting itself  in  a  higher  form  of  life.  And  as  making 
this  connection  with  higher  forms  it  shows  clearly 
again  the  fact  so  often  mentioned  in  previous  pages, 
that  the  life  as  a  whole,  although  made  up  of  many 
diverse  processes  and  facts,  is  yet  to  the  very  end 
an  unbroken  unity.  Even  in  those  cases  where  the 
unity  of  life  seems  broken,  which  we  call  abnormal  or 
diseased  states,  the  defect  perhaps  most  often  appears 
in  the  individual's  capacity  to  recognize  facts  and 
persons  and  relations.  There  is,  indeed,  a  very  signifi- 
cant sense  in  which  recognition  may  be  called  the 
highest  of  life  processes,  and  it  is  on  this  account  that 
it  is  worth  while  for  us  to  try  to  make  its  meaning 
clear  in  our  own  minds.  We  are  accustomed,  I  sup- 
pose, to  think  of  the  higher  forms  of  reason  as  the 
ultimate  stage  of  mental  growth,  to  believe  that  truth 
comes  to  us  in  some  abstract  fitness  of  systems  of 
thoughts  which  in  their  icy  hardness  and  distance  are 
so  outside  our  warmly  pulsing  life,  so  objective  and 
"disinterested"  and  unconcerned  with  ordinary  human 
affairs,  that  in  their  awful  presence  the  heart  must 
bow  down  and  wither  and  the  soul   lie  down  to  die. 


108  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

It  is  as  if  the  poor  child  humanity  must  see  the  beauty 
of  spirit  behind  the  dazzling  plate  glass  intellectuality 
of  a  world  organized  for  business  and  then  die  of  dis- 
appointment. Accordingly  we  must  show  that  recog- 
nition, as  the  fulness  of  memory,  implies  the  full  and 
complete  identification  of  the  truth  of  things  with  the 
inner  life  of  consciousness  and  the  ideals  of  our  hopes. 
Let  us  begin  with  simple  everyday  facts.  You  are 
walking  on  the  street  when  you  notice  a  man  approach- 
ing. So  far  you  have  no  interest  whatever  in  the 
man,  know  nothing  about  him  except  that  he  is  one 
of  the  millions  of  his  kind,  and  you  go  on  perhaps 
with  your  reflections.  The  man  comes  nearer,  and 
while  you  are  in  the  midst  of  an  intricate  and  diffi- 
cult thought  you  feel  the  "wonder  who  that  is"  that 
slips  into  your  mind.  But  your  reflection  is  so  far 
not  disturbed  and  you  go  on.  While  you  are  robustly 
thinking  away  at  your  problem  a  "looks  like  Smith1' 
passes  through  your  mind,  and  this  somewhat  shakes 
the  thought  process  off  its  base,  but  you  go  on  with 
your  thinking.  Finally  as  he  comes  nearer  his  peculiar 
grin  or  the  cut  of  his  coat  or  the  slack  of  his  walk 
catches  the  corner  of  your  eye  and  knocks  your 
thought  process  clear  off  its  feet.  You  look  up  with 
a  jerk  and  blurt  out,  '"Hello,  Jim,"  as  you  extend  your 
hand.  Then  you  lie  and  say,  "I  have  been  thinking 
of  you  all  day  and  wondered  where  you  had  been 
keeping  yourself  lately,"  which  only  means  that  Smith 
has  so  familiar  a  place  in  your  mind  and  is  so  com- 
fortable there  that  you  might  have  been  thinking  of 


■  THE  LIFE  OF  MIXD  109 

him  all  day,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  hadn't  been. 
The  fact  is  that  your  thought  process  of  a  moment  ago 
is  so  completely  out  of  your  mind  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  it  which  connects  with  Smith,  and  he  and  his 
group  of  experiences  enter  your  mind  and  completely 
fill  it.  How  recall  is  involved  in  these  group  connec- 
tions is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  next  thing  that 
comes  into  your  mind  to  say  is,  "How's  the  wife, 
Jim?"  That  is,  Smith's  completely  filling  your  atten- 
tion now  means  that  the  relations  closest  to  him  will 
determine  the  course  of  your  attention  as  it  goes  on 
through  the  groups  of  elements  which  Smith  means 
to  your  mind. 

Perhaps  the  simplest  factor  in  recognition  is  this 
feeling  of  familiarity.  But  it  is  well  to  notice  also 
that  this  smug  and  tidy  comfortableness  of  some  of 
our  images  is  merely  one  side  of  a  larger  and  more 
important  fact.  And  this  fact  is  that  the  transition 
which  we  make  from  one  line  of  images  to  another 
contains  a  conscious  suggestion  of  the  wholeness  of 
our  experience  and  the  comforting  assurance  that  our 
thought  is  never  quite  completely  off  the  track.  We 
never,  therefore,  or  rarely,  at  least,  get  the  idea  that 
we  are  "lost,"'  unless  there  is  emotional  suddenness 
in  the  transition  or  else  the  transition  is  made  too 
many  times  in  quick  succession  so  that  we  become 
confused.  In  the  instance  given  our  familiarity  and 
"comfortableness"  are  not  so  much  the  results  of  in- 
terest in  Smith;  in  fact,  later  we  may  say,  "What  a 
bore  Smith  is,  I  wish  he  had  not  interrupted  mi 


110  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

they  are  natural  assurances  that  the  Smith-group  of 
meanings  is  one  of  the  elements  necessary  to  the 
wholeness  and  completeness  of  our  experience.  The 
recognition  in  this  case  is  not  so  much  a  recognition 
of  Smith  as  of  the  totality  and  integrity  of  our  world 
and  the  safety  and  profit  with  which  we  may  move 
about  in  that  world.  It  is  not,  largely,  a  question  of 
the  type  of  feeling,  involved,  although  a  feeling  of 
some  sort  is  involved  in  every  recognition,  but  might 
in  the  case  given  have  been  of  the  opposite  type,  as  if 
I  had  exclaimed,  "There's  that  fool  Smith  again." 
Or,  it  may  have  been  fear  or  any  other  type.  So  it 
is  the  realization  or  apprehension  of  real  general  char- 
acters of  our  world  as  instanced  in  the  particular 
events  of  our  life  which  makes  the  significant  fact  of 
recognition  in  our  memory.  And  we  are  to  see  that 
it  is  this  reference  to  the  wholeness  of  experience  that 
is  the  core  of  the  recognition  process  in  whatever  form 
it  may  be  found. 

Let  us  take  now  some  more  complex  types  of  recog- 
nition. And  we  may  take  the  highest  forms  that  the 
memory  act  ever  assumes,  for  we  will  find  them,  just 
because  they  are  highest,  the  most  immediate  and 
therefore  really  best  known  of  any  of  the  memory 
experiences.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  psychologists  have 
in  general  not  discussed  these  elementary  forms  of 
experience.  Let  us  look  at  such  high  forms  of  recog- 
nition as  are  involved  in  appreciation  and  contempla- 
tion. For  the  psychologist,  probably,  appreciation 
would  be  a  "feeling,"  and   that  would  therefore  and 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  111 

henceforth  be  the  end  of  it. 

In  recognition  we  have  had  the  assurance,  in  passing 
from  one  image-system  to  another,  we  shall  not  slip 
into  intervening  darkness  and  outer  strangeness.  It 
is  therefore  the  condition  of  the  executive  continuity 
of  the  mind's  purpose  to  know,  and  is  what  makes  the 
mind  consent  to  undertake  the  venture  of  speculation. 
Without  this  the  mind  would  not  and  could  not 
"carry  on."  How  then  does  this  idea  of  wholeness 
and  continuity  relate  to  appreciation,  and  what  does 
it  all  have  to  do  with  recognition? 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  too  often  the  word  recogni- 
tion is  taken  to  mean  nothing  more  than  the  literal 
re-knowing  that  was  perhaps  once  its  meaning.  Any- 
way, the  idea  is  taken  often  simply  to  mean  that 
something  that  was  once  in  the  mind  but  which  for 
some  reason  was  lost  out  of  it  now  has  come  back  and 
is  "known  again."  The  emphasis  is  upon  the  sup- 
posed fact  that  in  now  knowing  the  thing  I  am  also 
aware  of  my  knowledge  of  it  on  a  previous  occasion; 
that  is,  that  I  know  it  in  two  different  times  at  the 
same  time.  There  would  be  no  particular  objection 
to  this  arising  from  the  theory  of  time,  since  time  is 
essentially  the  knowledge  of  a  fact  in  many  different 
succession  series  at  once;  the  question  is  rather 
whether  this  properly  describes  the  fact  in  connection 
with  which  we  use  the  term  recognition.  It  would 
certainly  not  explain  cases  of  mistaken  recognition, 
or  cases  where  we  feel  the  wontedness  of  familiarity 
in  the  face  of  circumstances  which  we  know  we  never 


112  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

could  have  known  before.  And  that  we  have  the 
"homey"  feeling  in  situations  which  we  know  we  never 
could  have  known  before,  and  which  we  arc  aware  at 
the  time  that  we  could  not  have  known  before;  and 
since  this  familiarity  is  the  characteristic  fact  in  recog- 
nition, we  recognize  things  which  have  had  no  previous 
connection  with  our  experience  at  all.  And,  again, 
whether  we  are  aware  of  a  previous  experience  of  a 
thing  or  situation  has  nothing  the  slightest  to  do  with 
recognition:  recognition  comes  as  often  and  as  natu- 
rally in  connection  with  things  never  experienced  be- 
fore as  with  things  that  have  become  commonplace 
in  our  lives.  The  experience  we  call  recognition  is 
the  experience  of  a  unique  quality  of  fact,  and  the 
supposed  mystery  of  it  is  just  that  quality  of  experi- 
ence which  our  "scientific^  accounts  overlook.  You 
cannot  approach  a  picture  or  walk  into  a  thicket  of 
brush  and  wild  flowers  with  the  confidence  of  full  sym- 
pathy (in  the  literal  sense  of  the  word)  and  comrade- 
ship which  enables  you  to  understand  the  lives  and 
loves  of  the  beings  that  inhabit  there,  if  you  have 
decided  in  advance  that  all  such  is  bosh  and  non- 
sense: you  will  not  be  able  to  recognize  a  wild  flower 
you  have  never  seen  if  you  mean  by  that  that  you 
have  to  have  known  it  in  order  to  know  it! 

What  we  have  here  then  in  recognition  is  simply  a 
rare  fact,  a  fact  so  rare  and  its  value  and  meaning  so 
subtle  that  we  ordinarily  do  not  observe  it.  It  is,  of 
course,  not  a  fact  if  values  are  not  facts:  the  reply  to 
which  is,  of  course,  that  facts  that  are  not  values  are 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  113 

not  facts  at  all.  In  recognition  we  have  the  realization 
that  a  given  experience  puts  us  in  sympathy  with  our 
world,  shows  us  that  with  this  presented  situation  we 
can  go  on  living  and  striving,  for  do  we  not  in  this 
fact  see  the  universal  end  of  all  action  and  the  guar- 
antee that  the  end  is  attainable  by  the  spirit  that  will 
hold  out  to  the  end?  The  painter  will  put  the  gro- 
tesque into  the  picture  just  to  show  the  impartiality 
of  the  law  that  relates  the  picture  to  your  world;  for  a 
picture  composed  altogether  of  fine  color  and  fine  form 
would  have  nothing  to  hang  on  to,  would  make  con- 
tact enough  with  the  end,  supposedly,  but  would  show 
no  relation  of  the  end  to  you.  But  even  this  sugges- 
tion of  action  and  accomplishment  may  not  be  present 
in  recognition,  and  is  not  present  in  the  fuller  forms 
of  the  aesthetic  experience.  A  picture  of  the  highest 
value  merely  leads  you  to  the  smile  which  wilts  you 
in  resignation  to  your  mind's  present  content,  and 
makes  no  requirements  of  action.  It  is  the  recognition 
of  the  end  in  the  beginning,  the  completion  of  the  end 
in  the  presented  means,  the  intuition  of  the  universal 
in  the  presented  particular  incomplete  fact  before  you, 
a  fact  whose  very  incompleteness  is  the  perfect  ful- 
fillment. Naturally  this  is  not  psychology;  but  we  are 
trying  to  do  justice  to  the  facts  of  recognition,  and 
neither  trying  to  justify  the  presuppositions  of  science 
nor  to  maintain  a  psychological  reputation.  The 
familiarity  you  feel  in  a  wierdly  uncouth  church  when 
the  organ  has  made  you  over  and  you  feel  your  feet 
on  the  rock  in  spite  of  the  brawling,  sprawling  mass 


114  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

of  superstition  in  wall  and  pew  and  every  overt  form, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  your  ever  having  seen  such  a 
place  before,  nor  with  your  ever  having  heard  those 
tones  before.  You  see  a  tone  bud,  swell  and  grow  and 
overload  itself  with  the  pure  quality  of  being  until  it 
bursts  in  birth  to  a  host  of  angelic  beauties  which,  al- 
though you  are  now  aware  are  there,  you  can  have  not 
the  faintest  idea  how  they  came  on  the  scene;  all  you 
know  is  that  they  represent  by  a  thousand  assurances 
that  your  world  is  stable  and  your  least  private 
thought  composite  to  the  whole.  But  these  are  not  ex- 
periences which  I  "know  again."  You  can  have  the 
inductive  proof  of  real  presence  in  recognition  from 
the  sprightly  jollity  of  the  violin,  where  all  the  sprites 
of  sound  overwhelm  you  with  the  wholeness  and  the 
wholesomeness  of  your  world;  but  the  deduction  from 
the  single  fact  which  is  also  law  you  can  get  only  from 
the  pipe  organ  through  the  miracle  of  the  birth  of  one 
living  tone  out  of  another.  The  mother  tone  smiles 
and  sings  of  beautiful  forms,  while  colors  dance  the 
soul  of  grace  about  her  head;  all  at  once  and  without 
beginning,  the  infant  wail  blends  its  voice  with  the 
melody  of  the  whole,  and  the  father  tone  speaking 
from  out  the  mystery  of  allness  chants,  "It  is  well." 

Hut  recognition  in  this  sense  implies  feeling,  and  if 
feelings  are  not  psychologically  respectable,  we  shall 
have  to  come  back  to  the  explanation  of  recognition 
as  "knowing  again." 

Recognition  is  observed  also  in  the  intellectual  ex- 
perience of  contemplation.     This  does  not,  of  course, 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  115 

differ  from  recognition  elsewhere.  Yet  we  do  not  want 
to  insist  that  recognition  is  always  a  matter  of  these 
so-called  "higher"  experiences. 

When  the  "uncultured"  man  on  Christmas  exclaims 
"Dandelion,"  he  is  happy  to  see  the  bloom  even  though 
he  does  not  know  it  again,  and  his  world  is  there  whole. 
But  the  fact  is  to  be  found  in  the  simplest  of  situa- 
tions. When  I  conduct  myself  about  my  affairs  among 
cither  familiar  or  unfamiliar  objects,  when  I  go  about 
reflexly  and  unthinking,  it  is  the  recognition  of  the 
laws  of  my  world  in  the  facts  hardly  noticed  before  me 
which  makes  my  actions  orderly  and  tend  to  issue  in 
desirable  ends.  Recognition  is  then  just  as  fully 
formed  in  the  immediately  taking  things  for  granted 
as  in  the  rarer  experiences,  though  for  the  unpracticed 
eye  they  are  more  easily  discerned  in  the  striking  case. 
What  we  must  see  is  that  it  is  recognition  that  makes 
the  continuity  we  have  in  our  experience,  and  as  a 
function  of  memory  it  makes  the  contact  between  the 
more  immediate  commonplace  mass  of  experiences  and 
the  relatively  rare  experiences  of  appreciation  and  con- 
templation. 

But  to  explain  recognition  as  it  appears  in  contem- 
plation. All  we  would  have  to  do  for  the  average  per- 
son here  would  be  to  say  that  contemplation  is  appre- 
ciation with  the  more  colorful  feelings  left  out.  Feel- 
ing really  does  the  thinking  in  appreciation,  that  is,  it 
really  leads  the  mind  about  and  shows  it  where  the 
significant  objects  lie,  and  suggests  by  color  signals 
how  these  objects  make  a  world.    It  does  not  fall  into 


116  THE  LIFE  OJF  MIND 

error  as  the  contemplative  reason  does,  for  it  attempts 
no  world  where  ends  require  gross  forms  of  action  for 
their  realization,  but  only  where  ends  which  are  real- 
ized in  colorful  form  enter  into  its  proper  world.  Con- 
templation attempts  the  abstract  world,  attempts  to 
walk  its  compass  to  the  ends  of  space,  forgetting  that 
the  ends  of  space  are  there  where  it  begins,  in  the  color 
which  the  compass  cannot  circumscribe.  Gross  action 
of  contemplation  creates  a  world  only  when  it  chooses 
the  grace  action  of  appreciation,  gropes  blindly 
through  empty  space  until  grace  fills  the  void  with 
color;  then  spacelings  rise  as  the  life-center  around 
which  the  worlds  may  form.  The  mere  geometric 
manipulators  of  pure  space  forms  people  a  world 
empty  with  nothings,  a  world  whose  only  claim  to 
recognition  is  the  doleful  clang  of  its  emptiness.  In 
contemplation,  the  color  of  fact  is  there,  but  not  as 
embodied  in  particular  fact;  there  only  as  the  law  of 
form  which  stands  ready  to  father  the  rawest  of  hues 
and  shades.  We  contemplate  facts  when  we  have 
thought  them  through  to  a  point  where  they  identify 
with  the  relations  which  connect  us  with  our  world- 
whole;  but  we  see  the  relation-system  as  the  rare 
framework  upon  which  our  world  rests,  as  if  its  char- 
acter of  fundament  were  its  recognizing  trait.  We 
see  our  world  as  a  cold  harmony  of  icicle  tones  which 
makes  beauty  enough,  but  does  not  connect  with  us  in 
any  way  except  through  the  cold  light  of  mere  aware- 
ness. It  is  thus  the  material  basis  of  appreciation, 
the  field  of  truth  which  becomes  also  beauty  only  by 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  117 

the  intervention  of  the  warm  light  of  feeling.  But 
the  perfect  knowledge  results  whenever  we  come  in 
recognition  to  direct  contact  with  objects,  truth  unites 
with  goodness  and  becomes  the  parent  of  beauty. 


PART  III. 

ATTENTION    AS   THOUGHT. 

CHAPTER  X. 

[NFERENCE,   OR  ATTENTION   AS  THINKING. 

We  have  been  engaged  in  showing  how  the  experi- 
ence process  which  begins  in  perception  grows  through 
all  the  stages  of  memory  into  the  very  highest  of  the 
forms  which  it  reaches  anywhere.  We  saw  the  curious 
relation  which  sensation  bears  to  the  process  all  along, 
and  how  sensation,  instead  of  misleading  us,  as  it 
usually  does,  to  a  purely  physical  account  of  experi- 
ence, might  on  a  more  sympathetic  view  become  one 
of  the  important  elements  in  the  make-up  of  the  life 
of  mind.  It  appeared  to  us  that  experience  begins  in 
the  contacts  which  our  bodies  make  with  the  objects 
of  the  environment,  and  that  the  changes  that  take 
place  later  are  due  largely  to  the  refinements  which 
more  and  more  complex  objective  situations  require. 
In  sensation  we  saw  the  emphasis  on  mere  abstract 
quality,  the  sheer  shapeless  tone  of  feeling  of  which 
we  are  aware  through  our  sense  organs.  As  such  these 
feelings  had  no  meanings  more  than  are  involved  in 
indicating  the  condition  of  the  organism,  and  they 
as  such  give  us  none  of  the  rare  experiences  which 
we  regard  as  making  up  the  worth  of  life.  It  was 
only  when   these   raw   feelings  of  color,   tone,   warm, 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  119 

cold,  etc.,  were  brought  to  some  degree  of  order  by 
the  meaning  of  the  whole  life  that  they  make  the 
experiences  which  we  characterize  as  values.  And  this 
ordering  of  raw  fact  into  the  forms  which  affect  our 
lives  in  so  many  ways,  the  making  over  of  mere 
groups  of  sensations  into  the  objects  which  we  use 
and  enjoy  as  the  instruments  of  the  purposes  that 
may  seem  good  to  us — this  process  we  called  per- 
ception. 

But  we  found  that  wider  relations  still  are  required 
to  make  the  whole  world  of  objects  the  permanent 
basis  for  significant  action  and  worthy  thinking. 
Objects  must  stay  in  our  experience  from  one  purpose 
to  another,  must  be  independent  of  the  mere  sensory 
character  which  makes  them  usable  once,  so  that  we 
can  depend  upon  their  being  there  even  while  our  pur- 
pose is  suspended  in  the  form  of  a  plan.  What  makes 
objects  permanent  and  dependable  for  experience,  we 
saw,  is  memory;  for  it  is  through  memory  that  the 
object  not  now  being  used  in  action  may  be  taken 
for  granted  in  our  plans,  will  stay  over  while  attention 
is  employed  with  something  else,  and  be  there  when 
our  plan  calls  for  just  it  as  a  necessary  part  of  what 
our  world  at  this  moment  requires.  And  in  recogni- 
tion we  saw  the  fulfillment  of  our  plans  in  the  order 
which  the  completest  of  objects  suggests  through  the 
relations  which  it  bears  to  our  world.  Recognition 
we  saw  to  be  one  ultimate  and  universal  factor  in  all 
our  experiences,  the  one  which  in  the  end  shows  our 
experiences    to    be    real.      We    have    therefore    passed 


120  THE  LIKE  OF  MIND 

from  the  discussion  of  qualities  and  "facts"  and  must 
now  face  the  difficulties  which  relations  involve,  after 
the  nature  of  relations  has  been  hinted  at  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  appreciation  and  contemplation. 

We  must  first,  therefore,  try  to  find  and  describe 
the  facts  of  inference.  And  we  had  a  hint  of  them, 
if  you  remember,  in  the  discussion  of  perception. 
There  we  said  that  perception  involved  interpretation, 
and  that  we  explained  as  the  seeing  of  the  simple 
relations  facts  have  to  each  other  when  they  go 
together  rightly  in  our  experience.  When  the  yellow 
color  goes  easily  and  smoothly  with  the  round  form 
and  softish  rough  surface,  etc.,  we  say  the  object  is 
an  orange.  We  could  be  mistaken,  of  course,  for 
objects  have  a  way  of  being  very  much  alike.  For 
instance,  if  you  show  me  a  round  object  colored  per- 
fectly with  the  orange  color,  and  the  right  size  and  all 
that,  I  would  likely  call  it  an  orange  even  though  it 
were  a  blistery  rubber  ball  made  to  deceive  me.  But 
for  our  purposes  here  the  being  right  or  wrong  is  not 
the  point;  we  want  to  see  cases  of  the  relation  between 
objects  which  makes  objects  go  together  in  a  world. 
And  we  see  in  the  perceptive  experience  a  case  where 
qualities  and  forms  fit  together  in  recognizable  objects. 
There  are  then  relations  among  the  qualities  of  an 
object  and  between  the  object  and  its  uses  which  make 
the  basis  of  the  movements  of  our  thought.  And  the 
movement  of  our  thought  which  follows  the  lines  of 
the  relations  of  things  is  called  inference. 

J. ike  all  other  facts  of  experience,  inference  repre- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  121 

sents  a  growth,  and  like  all  other  forms  that  grow 
it  shows  distinguishable  stages.  If  we  look  closely  at 
the  kind  of  experiences  described  above  we  can  point 
out  the  stages  of  growth,  although  an  experience  as 
simple  as  that  often  represents  by  itself  a  single  stage. 
But  in  any  complex  experience,  if  you  will  watch  it 
closely  from  the  time  it  begins  in  mere  sensory  sug- 
gestion up  to  the  point  where  it  develops  into  an 
action  or  the  statement  of  a  formed  plan,  you  will 
see  three  clearly  marked  stages.  But  when  I  say 
clearly  marked  I  do  not  mean  that  you  will  find  them 
the  first  time  you  look,  any  more  than  you  could 
find  a  cold  spot  on  the  back  of  your  hand  the  first 
time  you  tried;  but  you  can  learn  to  find  the  stages 
which  we  call  the  types  of  inference.  For  instance, 
that  the  color,  form,  size,  and  so  on,  should  mean 
orange  is  not  written  on  the  orange  in  big  black  type. 
The  meaning  is  not  there  in  any  shape  or  form  until 
the  color,  form,  size,  etc.,  come  up  in  an  experience 
with  a  taste  or  feel  or  smell,  or  some  still  more  remote 
factor  like  the  strength  or  pleasure  one  gets  from 
eating.  Then  before  the  meaning  occurs,  before  the 
relation  exists  that  makes  this  connection,  what  is 
the  status  of  reference  of  one  group  of  qualities  to 
the  other?  Where  or  in  what  condition  is  the  rela- 
tion before  we  see  it,  when  it  merely  resides  there  as 
a  mere  part  of  the  facts?  We  say  it  is  implicit,  and 
our  first  task  is  to  explain  what  we  mean  by  that 
word  and  what  are  the  facts  it  represents.  When  the 
relation  comes  out  into  the  open  and  is  as  evident  as 


122  THE  LIFE  OF.  MIND 

the  other  aspects  of  fact  it  is  said  to  be  explicit,  and 
to  understand  this  will  be  our  next  task.  There  is 
still  another  stage  which  the  relation  reaches  when 
it  is  already  evident  as  the  purely  factual  parts,  but 
itself  really  stands  out  as  the  meaning  of  the  whole, 
as  the  thread  which  runs  through  all  the  parts  and 
binds  them  into  a  whole  of  meaning.  This  we  call 
the  synoptic  stage,  and  with  it  we  reach  the  highest 
point  which  is  ever  attained  by  cognitive  or  knowing 
experience.  It  is  highest  in  that  the  partial  nature  of 
fact  which  is  still  evident  and  central  in  appreciation 
and  contemplation  is  here  lost  in  the  total  meaning 
of  the  whole.  We  take  up  these  three  stages  of  infer- 
ence in  the  order  named. 


CHAPTER  XL 

(i)     INFERENCE   AS   UNCONSCIOUS,   OR   IMPLICIT. 

Practically  all  that  can  be  said  in  any  general  way 
about  implicit  inference  has  been  said  already,  and 
it  remains  to  point  out  the  kind  of  experience  that  is 
meant  in  a  number  of  simple  instances.  We  saw 
above  that  a  certain  group  of  facts  was  taken  to  mean 
an  orange,  and  we  can  say  the  same  thing  now  by 
saying  that  a  certain  group  of  qualities  like  color, 
shape,  etc.,  make  a  connection  in  our  mind  with  other 
facts  like  eating,  selling,  etc.  This  connection  we  can 
express  by  saying  that  color,  shape,  etc.,  imply  eating, 
selling,  etc.,  and  by  this  we  mean  that  the  experiences 
on  the  one  side  come  to  some  kind  of  order  with  the 
experiences  on  the  other;  that  is,  that  they  come 
together  to  make  a  whole.  These  wholes  are  given 
the  names  of  the  common  objects  of  experiences,  as 
e.  g.,  orange.  This  fact,  that  a  group  of  facts  and 
qualities  involves  another  group  of  facts  and  quali- 
ties, is  what  we  mean  by  inference.  One  set  of  facts, 
we  say,  is  inferable  from  the  other;  that  one  is 
implied  in  the  other;  that  one  is  organic  to  the  other; 
or,  in  simple  language,  when  one  of  them  is  in  your 
mind  the  other  of  necessity  comes  in  too,  because  the 
experiences  belong  together.  But  it  is  the  necessity  of 
their  belonging  together  that  is  important,  and  no 
reference  is   made  in  inference   to   the   mere   chance 


124  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

coming  together  of  facts.  Not  only  are  the  facts 
together,  but  they  must  be  together,  they  belong 
together,  and  if  a  case  should  arise  where  they 
appeared  to  be  not  together  we  should  have  to  say 
that  we  were  mistaken  about  the  facts.  Inference 
then  is  the  test  as  to  whether  facts  are  facts,  and  in 
giving  the  meaning  to  facts  it  at  the  same  time  decides 
whether  circumstances  are  worth  the  trouble  of  saying 
that  meanings  might  attach  to  them.  That  is,  what 
we  call  the  attribution  of  meanings  to  things,  the 
giving  to  sets  of  facts  a  value  which  invests  them 
with  importance  in  our  life,  is  itself  an  inference; 
and  the  mere  designating  of  facts  with  names  that 
mean  the  same  for  groups  of  persons  already  has 
within  it  the  rudimentary  growth  stages  of  implicit 
inference. 

But  inference  of  the  implicit  sort  is  present  even 
when  names  are  not  used,  even  in  places  where,  strictly 
speaking,  there  is  no  expression  of  thought  at  all.  If 
I  am  making  a  table  in  my  shop  and  am  busy  or 
absorbed  with  the  difficulties  which  arise  from  the 
making  of  a  certain  joint,  it  can  hardly  be  said  that 
any  thinking  is  going  on  in  my  mind  at  all.  There 
is  nothing  going  on  there  that  can  be  put  into  definite 
language  without  first  consciously  building  it  out  so 
that  language  forms  are  appropriate  to  it,  which  means 
that  in  my  mind  there  is  merely  a  succession  of 
images,  most  of  which  are  organic  or  motor,  and  that 
the  images  get  such  order  as  they  have  (which  is  often 
of  a  very  high  type)   mostly  from  the  movements  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  125 

my  hands  and  of  the  machinery  and  tools  which  I 
use.  We  do,  almost,  think  with  our  hands  sometimes. 
That  is  to  say,  one  of  the  images  in  my  experience 
means  another  or  implies  or  depends  on  another, 
because  of  a  relation  that  is  itself  below  the  con- 
sciousness, and  in  this  case  inference  is  implicit  just 
because  it  does  not  need  to  be  expressed  in  any  of 
the  conventional  ways.  Many  of  the  very  significant 
meanings  of  life  are  thus  provided  for,  or  as  we  say 
in  technical  terms,  mediated  by,  just  such  processes, 
where  habit  and  instinct  take  care  of  the  systems  of 
our  values.  And  this  reference  of  our  value-systems 
to  the  more  or  less  automatic  processes  of  life,  proc- 
esses which  are  often  referred  to  as  "lower,"  is  perhaps 
responsible  for  the  value-system's  being  saved  over 
from  one  generation  to  the  next,  and  thus  for  the 
value-systems  persisting  through  long  stretches  of  the 
life  of  the  given  group  in  established  institutions. 

Inference,  then,  of  this  implicit  sort,  seems  to  take 
place  sometimes  even  in  the  physical  life  processes. 
But  we  should  remember  that  the  physical  processes, 
while  in  the  main  automatic  in  nature,  would  not  long 
remain  the  successful  instruments  that  they  are  if  it 
were  not  that  somewhere  consciousness  has  its  hands 
both  on  the  throttle  and  on  the  brake.  Such  proc- 
esses, as  you  know,  cannot  go  very  seriously  wrong 
until  consciousness  is  on  the  job  to  set  things  right. 
And,  as  you  perhaps  also  know,  just  as  serious  con- 
sequences might  happen  from  the  failure  of  these 
processes  to  start  or  move  at  the  right  time,  as  from 


[26  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

their  going  too  far  or  too  fast  or  too  irregularly  with- 
out some  sort  of  check.  This  means  that  these  proc- 
esses are  never  quite  unconscious,  that  in  any  situa- 
tion where  anything  means  any  other  thing,  or  tends 
toward  another  thing  or  varies  in  its  movements 
because  of  the  movement  or  existence  of  another 
thing;  in  fact,  whenever  anything  has  a  statable  rela- 
tion to  anything  else  there  you  may  take  it  for  granted 
that,  either  directly  or  remotely,  but  consciously,  con- 
sciousness is  involved.  If  this  were  not  true  it  would 
naturally  follow  that  such  relations  as  we  described 
above  would  be  mere  physical  relations,  and  the  call- 
ing them  implicit  inferences  would  explain  nothing, 
but  would  rather  confuse  the  situation.  But  it  must 
not  be  understood  that  we  are  saying  that  a  group 
of  facts  consisting  of  blocks  of  wood,  saws,  chisels, 
hands,  eyes,  etc.,  have  a  mind  of  their  own.  Not 
philosophers,  but  only  people  who  get  tangled  in  their 
physics,  make  so  stupid  a  mistake  as  that. 

Then  the  clearer  cases  of  implicit  inference  are  just 
those  where  consciousness  does  avowedly  get  on  the 
ground.  Let  us  take  a  case  where,  although  con- 
sciousness has  very  definitely  emerged,  it  is  not,  in 
the  expression  which  it  chooses  to  carry  its  meaning, 
conscious  of  its  dependence  upon  conditions  which 
lie  back  of  it  and  determine  the  choice  of  expressions 
from  a  number  of  alternatives.  Suppose  it  is  Sunday 
and  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  a  fine  summer 
day.  You  have  spent  the  day  in  utter  listlessness, 
read  the  morning  paper,  ate  a  "good"  dinner,  smoked 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  127 

a  cigar,  and  then  slept  until  four;  you  have  been 
resting  with  a  vengeance.  You  come  out  at  four  and 
the  breeze  has  stopped,  and  the  sun  blisters  down 
through  a  murky  haze  and  the  very  leaves  of  the 
trees  curl  up  as  if  to  dodge  its  vicious  thrusts.  You 
struggle  for  your  breath  and  with  what  you  can  catch 
you  gasp,  "Let's  go  for  a  drive."  In  this  case  the 
conscious  determination  to  go  for  a  drive  strikes  you 
as  a  happy  thought;  that  is,  it  is  not  directly  aware 
of  its  connection  with  the  conditions  of  your  experi- 
ence of  previous  hours.  But  the  moment  you  reach 
the  decision  you  are  aware  that  the  drive  comes  as  a 
consequence  of,  or  as  dependent  upon,  or  as  connected 
in  some  way  with,  the  other  experiences  of  the  day. 
You  would  then  say  that  these  weather  (and  other) 
conditions  are  implicit  in  the  decision  to  drive,  or 
that  a  decision  to  drive  is  implicitly  contained  in  the 
conditions  of  weather,  etc.,  as  they  affect  your  mind 
"unconsciously."  "Drive"  is  what  such  conditions 
mean. 

In  this  case  we  may  also  say  that  there  is  implicit 
in  the  decision  to  drive  an  implication  of  the  coolness 
of  the  air,  and,  negatively,  of  getting  rid  of  the  stuffy 
heat.  Or,  there  may  also,  in  a  still  more  unconscious 
way,  be  implied  in  the  drive  the  exertion  of  muscles 
to  which  you  feel  driven  by  the  stretchiness  which 
possesses  you  after  sleeping.  And  again,  the  drive 
may  have  been  suggested  by  the  hint  of  relief  which 
it  offers  from  the  discomfort  occasioned  by  the  "good" 
dinner.     Now  in  these  cases  you  cannot   be  sure  that 


128  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

you  will  get  the  right  ''reason"  for  your  decision  if 
you  try  to  think  it  out,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  you  will 
miss  all  the  good  reasons  if  your  candor  is  affected  by 
your  feelings,  as  is  likely  to  be  true.  For  instance, 
you  might  confess  that  the  dinner  was  a  little  too 
"good''  if  you  are  allowed  to  state  yourself  without 
being  prompted  by  your  self-respect,  but  you  might 
be  offended  and  deny  it  vigorously  if  somebody  else 
charged  you  with  eating  too  much.  The  point  is, 
that  we  are  not  dealing  with  reasons,  with  a  case 
where  relations  of  fact  are  judged  in  their  objective 
independence,  but  with  covert  or  implicit  inferences 
where  a  conclusion,  even  though  stated  in  full  con- 
sciousness of  its  meaning  in  some  of  its  connections, 
is  yet  not  aware  of  its  genetic  connections  in  facts 
which  gave  it  its  full  status.  Many  cases  could  be 
given,  but  this  is  perhaps  enough  to  show  what  the 
implicit  form  of  inference  is,  and  anyone  may  find 
them  in  his  own  experience  with  a  little  effort. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

(il)     INFERENCE  AS   CONSCIOUS,  OR   EXPLICIT. 

If  you  go  out  on  the  street  after  having  worked 
indoors  all  day  and  find  the  ground  wet,  you  may 
remark  that  it  has  been  raining;  for,  the  ground  is 
wet.  Or  you  may  say  that  the  street  sprinkler  has 
passed,  for  you  see  that  the  ground  is  wet  only  on 
the  street  and  not  elsewhere.  There  will  be  rain 
tomorrow,  for  the  sun  went  down  behind  a  bank  of 
cloud,  or,  it  will  be  colder,  for  the  red  of  the  sunset 
reaches  far  into  the  south.  In  all  these  cases  you 
make  definite  statements  and  connect  them  definitely 
with  other  statements.  You  accept  certain  bodies  of 
fact  as  having  connection  in  the  nature  of  things  with 
other  bodies  of  fact,  and  take  it  for  granted  that 
anyone  who  might  be  present  would  be  obliged  to 
share  the  experience  with  you.  That  is,  the  situa- 
tions you  describe  are  there  as  part  of  the  nature  of 
things,  your  mind  does  not  seem  to  be  acting  in  any 
creative  way,  and  you  would  expect  everybody  to 
experience  the  facts  just  as  you  do.  This  assumed 
solidity  of  the  world  as  we  see  it  and  move  about  in 
it  is  then  the  basis  of  our  communication  with  each 
other,  is  what  in  fact  makes  the  world  for  man  a 
social  world.  It  is  not,  then,  as  social  theorists  some- 
times assume,  the  fact  that  we  have  states  of  mind 
and  that  the  states  of  mind  of  one  person  are  like 


130  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

those  of  another,  that  gives  a  common  world.  Whether 
our  mental  states  are  alike  in  the  way  often  assumed 
is  not  and  perhaps  never  will  be  proved;  in  fact,  it 
can  be  shown  that  no  such  likeness  ever  could  be 
demonstrated  in  any  way.  It  is  then  the  objective 
or  overt  or  communicable  or  common  world  that  gives 
us  what  community  of  spirit  we  possess,  and  it  might 
be  worth  saying  for  the  benefit  of  the  reformers  that 
if  ever  they  attain  a  "fellowship  of  kindred  minds" 
it  will  be  because  the  outward  and  material  conditions 
of  life  are  ordered  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  put  a 
premium  on  discord  and  strife.  But  all  we  mean  here 
is  that  the  relations  of  dependence  which  hold  among 
our  thoughts  have  their  ground  in  the  facts  of  the 
external  world. 

Then  in  cases  of  our  explicit  inference  it  is  possible 

to  give  characteristic  and  fixed  forms  of  expression, 

because  they  represent  the  formed  order  of  our  world. 

\  And   on   this   account   we   could   expect   language   to 

1  show  certain  forms  and  certain  established  relations 

which  are  themselves  just  as  much  elements  of  fact  in 

i  our  world  as  things  of  wood  and  stone.     Only,  since 

it  is  always  possible  for  forms  of  thought  to  grow  and 

change,  we  will  have  to  find  the  permanent  aspects 

of  thought  in  the  orderly  changes  through  which  they 

pass  in  the  process  of  development  of  ends  in  our  life. 

You  can  depend  upon  the  sun  to  make  his  journey 

through   the   heavens   every   day   and    the   homeward 

journey  every  night  just  as  precisely  as  you  can  depend 

upon  a  mountain  to  stay  eternally  where  it  is.     And 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  131 

to  know  where  rivers  will  flow  is  just  as  fundamental 
in  our  life  as  to  know  where  the  everlasting  hills  are 
always  to  be  found;  similarly,  it  is  just  as  important 
to  find  the  active  and  changing  and  growing  aspects 
of  thought  as  it  is  to  know  those  hardened  and 
immovable  forms  which  mark  the  ends  of  growth 
movements.  And  it  is  these  two  characters  in  expe- 
rience which  make  up  the  complex  fact  which  we  call 
explicit  inference;  the  fixed  and  permanent  character 
of  our  thought  life  which  inference  of  any  kind  takes 
for  granted,  and  the  active,  free-moving  mind  itself 
as  the  law  of  the  growth  of  the  whole. 

We  should  now  look  at  some  of  these  different 
aspects  of  inference  in  this  higher  form.  In  dealing 
with  inference  we  have  spoken  often  of  the  act  of 
naming  a  complex  of  fact  which  appears  in  sense. 
Now  after  the  name  has  come  to  be  familiar  to  our 
thought  we  can  connect  it  with  the  images  we  have 
of  objects  even  where  there  are  no  objects  present  to 
our  senses.  And  possibly  it  is  true  that  sooner  or 
later  the  name  becomes  so  detached  from  the  sensa- 
tion and  images  that  we  can  use  it  as  a  thing  by  itself 
which  carries  a  meaning  that  does  not  require  at  every 
point  to  be  felt  as  a  sensory  fact  or  seen  as  an  image 
form.  Then  we  have  names  which  stand  more  or  less 
solidly  alone,  which  we  can  use  in  thought  without 
the  necessity  of  always  finding  illustrations.  Some- 
times we  say  that  the  form  of  the  name  becomes  a 
sign  or  symbol  of  the  meaning,  but  this  is  probably 
not  true  because  a  sign  implies  that  in  order  to  have 


132  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

I  a  meaning  at  all  it  must  be  possible  to  change  it  back 
into  the  facts  which  it  signifies.  But  an  idea,  or  a 
concept,  and  this  is  what  we  call  a  name  thus  detached 
from  its  original  images,  has  a  meaning  of  its  own  to 
some  degree  independently  of  the  images.  It  is  true 
that  its  meaning  will  always  include  the  images,  but 
it  will  also  always  be  something  more  than  the  images, 
and  this  something  more  is  probably  the  order  of 
image-content  as  the  order  refers  away  from  the  image 
in  the  opposite  direction  toward  law.  This  point  is 
the  most  difficult  in  the  science  which  deals  with  these 
thought  forms  and  processes,  the  science  called  logic, 
and  we  will  have  to  leave  it  at  this  point.  However, 
the  names  which  become  fixed  in  experience  with 
meanings  independent  of  direct  connections  with 
images  are  the  solid  forms  which  we  find  when  we 
break  up  the  thought  process  into  its  parts. 

But  we  will  find  also  that  these  hardened  names 
or  concepts  fall  themselves  into  certain  arrangements 
corresponding  to  the  facts  and  events  of  life.  Sup- 
pose we  think  of  a  random  list  of  such  concepts,  as 
e.  g.,  tree,  warmth,  tallness,  man,  day,  etc.  These 
represent  the  more  or  less  fixed  classes  of  things  as 
they  stand  in  our  minds.  But  we  are  going  about  our 
business  and  the  vigorous  exercise  of  the  work  we  are 
doing  brings  out  the  perspiration  on  our  brow.  You 
therefore  feel  or  sense  '"warm"  and  as  the  sensation 
comes  to  your  consciousness  you  remark,  "It  is  a  warm 
day,"  or  "The  day  is  warm."  But  even  if  you  only 
exclaim  "warm!"  it   is  clear  what   has  happened.     A 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  133 

contact  has  formed  in  your  mind  between  the  fixed 
form  "warmth"  as  it  stands  in  your  experience  and 
the  new  sensation  quality  which  forces  its  way  into 
attention.  That  is,  the  forms  which  stand  there  in 
your  organized  experience  naturally  fall  into  arrange- 
ments dictated  by  the  sensations  which  arise  from 
the  objects  from  the  outside  world.  And  if  you  are 
not  deliberately  "thinking"  the  arrangements  will 
either  follow  the  leads  furnished  by  the  things  that 
are  before  your  eyes,  or  they  will  follow  the  orders 
and  arrangements  that  have  been  left  in  your  mind  by 
previous  sensation  experiences,  pretty  much  as  the 
balls  on  the  billiard  table  will  take  the  arrangement 
given  them  by  the  last  stroke.  Then  not  only  are 
familiar  name  forms  fixed  more  or  less  permanently 
in  our  experience,  but  also  the  orders  and  arrange- 
ments of  the  name-forms  themselves  become  estab- 
lished in  such  a  way  as  to  determine  in  some  degree 
the  shape  which  a  new  experience  is  to  take. 

We  have  spoken  in  the  main  as  if  everything  that 
happens  in  the  mind  happens  according  to  accident. 
This  is,  however,  not  what  is  meant;  although  it  would 
be  difficult  to  say  what  accident  itself  means.  What 
we  have  meant  to  do  is  to  avoid  the  old  popular  idea 
that  a  "will"  sits  over  these  facts  and  fixes  their  rela- 
tionse  for  them.  You  doubtless  speak  as  if  you  decide 
what  ideas  you  will  have  and  just  how  you  will  arrange 
them.  And  this  is  in  a  sense  right.  We  have  de- 
scribed inference  in  terms  of  the  dependence  of  ideas 
upon   each  other,   and  have   hinted   at    two   or   three 


134  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

ways  in  which  these  relations  get  established.  Some 
of  them  just  mechanically  follow  the  order  in  which 
sensations  happen  to  occur.  Some  others  seem  to 
follow  lines  of  relations  already  established  among 
the  forms  in  the  mind  itself.  And  now  we  speak  as 
if  "You"  or  "I"  had  charge  of  the  process.  This 
matter  is  very  difficult  to  state  simply,  but  is  also 
very  important.  Now  when  we  said  that  experiences 
will  follow  the  sensations  as  they  come  we  did  not 
imply  that  the  sensations  would  come  in  any  hap- 
hazard way,  but  it  was  rather  implied  that  some  sort 
of  arrangement  would  be  in  the  sensations  themselves, 
just  because  of  their  correspondence  with  the  quali- 
ties of  facts.  And  in  the  case  of  the  forms  fixed  in 
the  mind  by  past  experience,  it  seems  that  their  very 
fixity  and  permanence  itself  implies  some  degree  of  or- 
der. And  "you"  would  yourself,  if  you  should  take 
charge  of  your  mental  states,  want  so  to  handle  them 
that  you  could  give  an  explanation  or  at  least  a  de- 
scription afterwards.  That  is,  in  every  case  the  fact 
seems  to  be  that  accident  has  nothing  to  do  with  it, 
nor  does  any  irresponsible  "you"  have  any  great  lot 
to  do  with  the  order  and  system  of  experience. 

What  we  have  found,  however,  is  that  the  order  of 
experience  is  subject  to  law.  But  we  must  go  on  for 
a  moment  to  show  that  there  are  two  things  which  law 
may  mean.  And  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  inference  we  are  describing,  and  that  our  diffi- 
culty comes  from  the  very  complex  nature  of  inference 
in  its  higher  forms.    Inference  is  precisely  the  function 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  L3S 

through  which  order  and  organization  get  established 
not  only  in  the  facts  of  mind,  but  also  in  the  larger 
world  itself.  We  can  not  go  into  the  detailed  discus- 
sion of  this  matter,  but  some  understanding  of  the 
question  involved  is  necessary  before  psychology  can 
have  much  that  is  worth  saying  on  a  good  many  topics 
that  are  properly  psychological  questions.  When  we 
suggest  that  the  concept  of  law  means  two  things,  we 
imply  that  in  so  far  as  psychology  undertakes  to  clas- 
sify facts  and  to  state  the  laws  of  their  relations,  it  as- 
sumes two  different  kinds  of  obligations.  It  may  mean, 
in  the  first  place,  merely  that  the  relations  that  hold 
among  facts  are  those  which  mean  that  facts  always 
behave  in  the  same  ways,  as  e.  g.,  fire  will  always 
burn,  water  wet,  and  good  pastures  make  fat  sheep. 
But,  in  the  second  place,  it  may  mean  that  facts  not 
only  take  uniformly  certain  relations  to  each  other, 
but  that  when  and  after  taking  such  relations  the  facts 
thus  related  as  wholes  tend  to  establish  a  meaning  in 
some  situation  of  fact  that  is  not  yet,  it  may  be,  or- 
ganized at  all.  To  put  this  matter  simply,  facts  in 
the  first  sense,  where  the  law  of  their  relations  means 
merely  uniformity  of  behavior,  have  no  real  meanings, 
have  no  suggestion  to  anything  beyond  themselves. 
But  in  the  second  case,  law  means  that  the  relations 
of  facts  have  a  reference  beyond  the  facts  to  situations 
involving  the  same  facts  as  ends. 

It  was  noticed  above  that  one  of  the  cases  in  which 
inference  becomes  explicit  or  fully  stated  so  as  to  be 
communicable,  is  the  case  of  judgment.     Here  simple 


]  56  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

experiences  get  welded  together  into  new  and  meaning- 
ful forms.  These  judgments,  or  if  we  reserve  the  word 
judgment  to  stand  for  the  act  of  thought,  and  call  the 
expression  of  the  thought  in  words  the  proposition, 
these  propositions  also  unite  to  form  still  more  com- 
plex forms.  We  tend  to  sum  up  our  experiences  in  the 
form  of  judgments  and  make  these  summary  judg- 
ments in  a  form  which  refers  not  to  a  particular  fact 
now  before  our  eyes,  but  to  all  facts  of  a  given  kind. 
For  instance,  we  have  observed  that  last  year  the  pas- 
tures wrere  good  and  that  the  sheep  were  fat.  The  year 
before  the  pastures  were  not  good  and  the  sheep  were 
poor.  Then  we  go  back  in  memory  (rather  such  facts 
get  stored  in  popular  speech  forms)  to  all  the  years 
we  can  remember  in  which  the  pastures  were  good,  and 
we  recall  that  the  sheep  were  also  fat.  Then  we  shorten 
the  expression  and  say,  "Good  pastures  make  fat 
sheep,"  and  this  becomes  a  summary  of  our  experience 
on  the  sheep  question.  But  it  also  means  more  than 
a  mere  sum  of  past  experience;  it  implies  that  if  I  am 
a  farmer  I  can  depend  upon  having  fat  sheep  every 
time  the  pastures  are  good,  and  that  this  will  hold 
good  for  me  and  everybody  else  in  the  future.  Then 
the  proposition  means  that  "In  all  cases  where  the 
pastures  are  good  the  sheep  will  be  fat."  We  have 
reached  this  general  truth  as  we  say  through  induction. 
But  suppose  I  have  not  seen  any  sheep  this  year,  but 
know  that  tTiere  have  been  plenty  of  rain  and  sun- 
shine; then  I  can  say,  "Whenever  the  pastures  are 
good  the  sheep  will  be  fat;  the  pastures  are  good  this 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  137 

year,  therefore  this  year  we  will  have  fat  sheep/'  This 
truth  we  say  we  reach  through  deduction,  that  is,  we 
start  from  a  general  truth  which  we  already  know  and 
deduce  or  derive  from  it  some  statement  about  facts 
as  they  are  in  this  particular  case.  Inference  then  of 
the  explicit  sort  follows  two  types  of  method,  and  they 
are  called  inductive  inference  and  deductive  inference. 


r< 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

(Ill)    INFERENCE  AS  SYNOPTIC,  AND  ORGANIZATION. 

All  these  processes  we  have  been  describing  have  for 
their  purpose,  we  may  repeat,  that  of  showing  the 
ways  in  which  the  elements  of  experience  go  together 
to  form  what  appear  to  us  as  unified  experiences.  It 
has  been  shown  how  the  experience  process  begins  in 
perception,  grows  through  memory  in  its  various 
stages,  and  then  on  into  inference  in  all  its  intricate 
and  varying  forms.  It  was  shown  that  for  mere  pur- 
poses of  description  we  could  analyze  the  process  at 
any  point  into  original,  or  what  appeared  to  be  origi- 
nal, elements,  and  to  show  precisely  what  this  means 
we  analyzed  the  perceptual  experience  into  its  com- 
ponent sensations.  But  then  it  was  necessary  to  cau- 
tion ourselves  that  these  sensations  were  not  complete 
facts  and  could  only  be  described  as  such  largely  be- 
cause we  had  decided  to  analyze,  but  that  when  taken 
as  mere  sensation  facts  they  give  us  no  insight  into 
the  question  of  the  nature  of  experience  taken  as  a 
whole,  and  in  fact  that  there  are  many  experiences 
which  simply  are  not  understandable  at  all  when  we 
try  to  break  them  up  into  sensations.  It  was  the  weak- 
ness of  this  method  of  analyzing  things  all  to  pieces 
which  made  us  resort  to  the  growth  relations  between 
the  facts  of  experience  as  furnishing  the  best  method 
of  explaining  them.    And  it  seemed  to  be  well  enough 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIXD  139 

shown  that  the  life  process  is  one  and  continuous, 
that  what  we  call  its  higher  stages  are  nothing  more 
or  less  than  its  lower  stages  grown  into  what  they 
mean.  Thus  a  memory  image  is  a  grown-up  percept; 
when  it  reaches  full  maturity  it  is  called  a  concept  or 
idea.  When  the  same  fact  which  we  call  a  concept 
makes  relations  with  another  concept  or  a  percept,  we 
say  it  has  grown  out  of  its  isolation  and  become  a 
whole  involving  an  order  of  its  parts  in  an  end.  It 
is  this  latter  fact,  the  tendency  to  the  formation  of 
ordered  wholes  of  experience,  which  we  designate  the 
highest  of  the  attentive  processes  as  such,  and  call  it 
here  by  the  name  of  Synoptic  Inference. 

It  would  have  been  equally  possible  to  describe  the 
attentive  process  as  imagination,  and  to  have  found 
stages  of  imagination  which  would  correspond  to  the 
stages  we  marked  as  perception,  memory,  conception, 
judgment,  etc.  And  in  a  more  advanced  considera- 
tion, one  giving  more  emphasis  to  the  intricacies  of 
detail  and  the  refinements  of  distinction  among  con- 
scious facts,  it  would  have  been  quite  in  order.  And 
besides  there  would  have  been  a  very  special  reason 
why  such  a  procedure  is  absolutely  necessary  if 
psychology  is  to  make  good  its  claim  to  be  a  descrip- 
tion of  experience  and  to  fulfill  its  boast  of  being  the 
science  of  the  mind.  Until  the  life-process  is  described 
in  its  character  of  image-forming  creator,  and  all  the 
details  of  the  various  stages  of  the  image-forming  proc- 
ess have  been  revealed,  there  can  be  no  real  knowledge 
basis  anywhere  for  many  of  the  highest  interests  and 


140  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

purposes  which  make  up  the  significance  of  human 
life.  There  can  be  no  organized  knowledge  of  art, 
however  much  leather  and  prunella  there  may  be  writ- 
■ten  about  art,  until  we  have  the  life  and  habits  of  the 
imagination  pretty  fully  investigated  within  its  natural 
habitat.  And  it  is  the  same  with  religion.'  One  is  even 
tempted  to  say  that  the  reason  that  our  industrial  and 
political  life  is  so  contemptibly  crude  and  crass  and 
stupid  and  ugly  is  just  because  we  have  cultivated 
everything,  after  a  fashion,  except  the  imagination. 
How  much  more  significant  and  clean  these  things 
would  be  if  we  had  a  sense  of  humor  as  keenly  sharp 
as  our  sense  for  groceries.  And  if  we  could  develop  a 
sense  for  beauty  to  the  degree  that  we  have  developed 
a  thrill  for  jazz,  our  problems  of  immorality  and 
coarseness  would  largely  disappear.  But  a  sense  of 
beauty  and  a  sense  for  humor  can  come  only  within  a 
mind  educated  to  see  things  in  their  proper  propor- 
tions, and  this  sense  of  the  appropriate  come  from  a 
development  of  the  powers  of  synoptic  inference. 

But  let  us  now  try  again  to  see  what  we  mean  by 
the  synoptic  inference.  The  question  is  difficult 
largely  because  all  our  language  is  adapted  to  the  de- 
scription of  things  taken  by  themselves  for  the  most 
part.  Synoptic  inference  implies,  on  the  contrary, 
that  the  real  meanings,  the  real  situations  that  interest 
us  finally,  and  not  those  which  tickle  us  for  the  mo- 
ment, come  to  us  only  in  so  far  as  we  look  beyond  the 
petty  details  of  life,  whether  the  details  be  pleasing  or 
attractive  or  not,  and  can  interpret  our  special  experi- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  141 

ences  in  terms  of  a  great  end  which  will  include  all 
the  worthy  particulars.  To  illustrate.  You  desire,  let 
us  say,  to  become  a  statesman  or  a  "captain  of  indus- 
try." But  you  know  that  you  cannot  become  such  a 
person  in  a  day  or  a  week  or  a  year,  or  at  least  you 
should  know  that  most  failures  in  these  large  things 
are  due  to  the  individual's  desire  to  wake  up  some 
morning  and  find  himself  famous.  Then  if  it  takes 
time  and  courage,  and  it  may  be  self-denial,  all  these 
little  wants  and  wishes  must  give  way  to  the  larger 
end  which  you  have  embraced.  But  here  is  another 
mistake  which  has  come  down  to  us  through  a  long 
tradition;  it  is  the  idea  that  if  you  want  the  one  big 
thing  you  must  give  up  all  the  little  things.  On  the 
contrary,  it  must  be  made  clear  that  the  one  big  thing 
that  we  desire  is  after  all  just  the  big  thing  that  it  is 
because  it  is  made  up  of  all  the  little  things.  Conse- 
quently we  are  not  asked  to  give  up  anything  that  is  at 
all  real,  for  it  will  be  necessary  in  the  constitution  of 
the  end;  but  what  we  are  required  to  do  is  to  see  the 
little  thing  as  a  part  of  the  whole,  and  to  postpone  the 
accomplishing  of  it  by  itself  until  it  and  all  the  other 
little  goods  are  capable  of  being  attained  all  at  once 
in  the  larger  good.  We  are  required  thus  to  take  the 
synoptic  view  of  the  details  of  life. 

This  point  is  important  although  it  is  commonly 
used  merely  for  "moral  exhortation."  Human  life  is 
growing  ever  more  and  more  complex.  Men's  activi- 
ties are  tending  to  collect  into  greater  and  greater 
bodies  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  ends  of  life.    This 


142  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

is  true  everywhere,  and  in  all  departemnts  of  activity. 
But  nowhere  is  it  so  true  and  so  important  as  in  our 
practical  life  in  its  immediate  aspects  as  organized 
in  industry.  Here  what  used  to  be  done  by  a  man 
working  alone  and  living  in  his  own  home,  and  done 
as  a  whole  by  each  man,  now  is  done  by  a  great  group 
of  men,  each  doing  only  a  small  part  and  nothing  as 
a  whole.  For  instance,  shoes  formerly  were  made  by 
the  shoemaker  in  his  own  little  shop,  but  now  are 
turned  out  by  hundreds  of  men,  each  adding  his  little 
bit  to  the  process.  The  fact  that  nobody  makes  a 
whole  shoe,  but  one  cuts  the  upper,  another  the  sole, 
another  puts  in  the  eyelets,  etc.,  has  had  far-reaching 
effects  upon  the  ideas  and  purposes  of  men,  and  enters 
largely  into  the  determination  of  the  make-up  of  their 
minds.  The  fact  that  the  production  of  anything  re- 
quires a  large  group  of  men  working  alongside  of  each 
other,  but  not  in  any  real  co-operation,  has  brought 
about  a  more  or  less  complete  reorganization  of  human 
society,  and  is  responsible  for  most  of  the  imperfec- 
tion and  evil  in  modern  life.  The  difficulty  is  that 
these  large  groups  of  men  do  not  work  together,  and 
they  are  together  in  no  sense  except  that  they  may  all 
be  in  the  same  factory.  But  even  this  is  not  the  case, 
for  the  man  who  makes  the  axle  of  an  automobile  may 
live  in  one  city,  and  the  man  that  puts  it  into  the  ma- 
chine may  live  in  another.  The  men  never  see  each 
other,  and  where  they  do  see  each  other  it  is  often  un- 
der such  conditions  as  make  it  impossible  to  get  ac- 
quainted.    Many  factories  are  so  noisy  that  people 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  143 

cannot  talk,  and  some  jobs  are  so  dangerous  that  if 
the  men  talk  they  are  likely  to  be  mangled  by  the 
machines  they  use.  There  is,  therefore,  no  unity  of 
mind  among  the  men.  The  difficulty  is  that  nobody 
sees  the  situation  as  a  whole,  nobody  tries  to  make 
the  proper  relations  among  the  myriads  of  people  who 
work  in  such  a  place,  and  the  work  as  a  whole  has  no 
meaning  to  anybody  simply  because  it  is  broken  up 
into  so  many  separate  processes. 

The  future  of  ordered  life,  therefore,  depends  upon 
the  training  of  people  who  shall  see  that  there  must 
be  brought  into  such  situations  such  a  unity  of  pur- 
pose as  will  enable  each  worker  to  see  a  meaning  in 
his  work.  The  opportunity  is  then  open  to  those  who 
will  consent  to  pay  the  price  of  attaining  a  mind 
which  can  take  a  synoptic  view  of  such  a  situation. 
How  this  is  done  we  must  describe  later.  But  it 
means  that  such  "piece"  work  must  give  way  to  such 
a  reorganization  as  will  bring  men  into  unity  with 
each  other  instead  of  making  them  suspicious  of  each 
other.  The  largest  and  most  attractive  field  now  open 
to  young  men  and  women,  a  field  which  promises 
everything  which  can  rightly  be  desired,  is  the  field  of 
industry  and  its  need  for  intelligent  reorganization. 
But  this  of  course  carries  a  great  responsibility, 
namely  that  the  person  who  undertakes  it  must  know 
the  sorts  of  mind-relations  that  go  to  make  up  the  in- 
dustrial situation,  and  must  know  the  kinds  of  unity 
that  can  be  attained  in  given  types  of  mind.  And 
those  who  will  be  in  possession  of  right  principles  here 


144  THE  LIFE  OF   MIND 

will  be  those  who  have  a  synoptic  knowledge  of  human 
nature  such  as  is  derived  from  a  thorough  study  of 
human  nature. 


PART  IV. 

MIND   AS  ACTION. 

CHAPTER   XIV. 

MIND  AS   VOLITION,   OR   WILL. 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  been  concerned  mainly 
with  experience  in  so  far  as  it  is  engaged  in  getting 
acquaintance  contacts  with  the  external  world,  and  in 
organizing  the  objects  of  that  world  in  accordance  with 
its  plans.  We  noted  that  the  attention  experiences, 
which  we  recognized  as  a  class  including  several  forms, 
run  all  the  way  through  all  and  every  experience 
which  we  ever  have,  consequently  we  do  not  have  to 
go  on  to  another  type  of  experience  and  leave  the  at- 
tentive or  knowing  forms  behind,  but  all  the  forms 
we  have  so  far  described  may  be  taken  as  present  in 
experiences  of  action  also.  We  will  have  to  take  up  in 
its  proper  place  the  question  of  the  further  unity  of 
experience  as  a  whole,  and  in  that  connection  we  shall 
see  that  the  process  we  described  as  growth  is  to  be 
found  as  the  basic  fact  everywhere. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  popular  mind,  the  life 
of  action,  for  this  is  the  proper  sphere  of  will,  seems 
simple  enough.  Perhaps  the  average  person  would 
say  that  when  you  want  to  move  your  hand,  your  mind 
just  sets  the  muscles  into  operation  and  the  movement 
takes  place.    Nothing  is  required,  therefore,  excepl  a 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

mind  which  knows  what  it  wants  to  do,  a  "will"  which 
is  able  to  do  what  the  mind  wants  done,  and  a  body 
as  the  instrument  or  tool  through  which  the  mind  and 
will  work.  But  the  simplest  reflection  will  show  that 
the  situation  is  not  as  simple  as  it  seems.  For,  many 
times  you  act  before  you  know  what  you  are  doing, 
and  in  many  cases  you  act  when  you  do  not  want  to 
act.  You  act  sometimes  when  you  are  not  even  aware 
of  having  acted  even  when  the  action  is  completed, 
and  if  asked  about  it  would  deny  it  and  be  perfectly 
honest  in  your  denial.  There  are  even  times  when  we 
know  what  we  are  doing,  do  not  want  to  do  it,  yet  go 
right  on  and  do  it  nevertheless.  Many  of  the  actions 
of  every  day's  life  are  done  unconsciously,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  purposes  of  culture  to  reduce  as  many  of 
the  immediately  necessary  actions  to  mechanism  as  is 
possible.  You  do  not  remember  in  what  order  you  put 
on  the  various  articles  of  your  clothing  when  you  get 
up  in  the  morning,  unless  you  happen  to  know  that 
you  put  them  on  in  the  same  order  every  morning. 
But  in  any  case  you  are  not  aware  of  the  actions  at 
the  time.  You  perhaps  do  not  know  what  you  ate  for 
breakfast  unless  something  unusual  happened  at  the 
time.  And  when  we  add  to  these  kinds  of  actions  all 
the  complicated  and  delicate  movements  involved  in 
some  of  our  skills,  as  for  instance  in  playing  the  piano 
or  in  operating  the  typewriter,  we  are  ready  to  ac- 
knowledge that  the  life  of  action  is  not  so  simple  as  it 
looks  on  first  view. 

Nor  is  it  possible  to  overestimate  the  value  of  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  147 

'life  of  action  in  the  syntheses  of  processes  and  per- 
formances whereby  the  goods  of  life  are  created  and 
secured  to  us  and  to  our  posterity.  It  is  through  that 
very  great  and  commonplace  field  of  action  which  we 
call  work  that  all  the  permanent  values  of  life  are 
created  and  maintained.  If  we  consider  the  many 
changes  which  have  been  effected  in  our  world  by  the 
means  of  human  work,  the  prospect  is  hardly  con- 
ceivable. Literally,  mountains  have  been  removed, 
mighty  rivers  deflected  from  their  courses,  the  interior 
of  the  earth  penetrated  in  many  ways  and  for  many 
purposes,  and  there  seems  no  part  of  the  universe  that 
has  not  been  compelled  to  yield  its  secret.  And  all  this 
when  we  consider  merely  the  physical  activities  of 
men.  When  we  contemplate  the  vastness  of  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  mind  in  the  realm  of  ideas,  the 
results  are  equally  surprising.  The  sciences  themselves 
are  an  imposing  monument  to  the  work  of  mind;  and 
if  we  think  of  mind  in  some  of  its  lighter,  freer  activi- 
ties, there  are  the  gayer  forms  of  art  and  play  and  re- 
ligion to  grace  the  life  of  man. 

Again,  it  is  through  the  activity  of  the  organism 
that  all  the  efforts  of  thought  must  seek  to  find  ex- 
pression, and  there  is  no  form  of  activity  which  does 
not  serve  to  build  up  in  the  external  world  some  kind 
of  body  which  is  to  serve  as  the  dwelling  place  of  the 
idea  that  creates  it.  It  is  in  this  way  that  action  is 
the  means  between  the  lifeless  external  world  and  the 
pulsing  inner  life  of  mind.  It  is  thus  the  executive  proc- 
cal  forms  in  the  external  world  is  effected  and  made 


148  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

permanent.  And  it  is  equally  the  life  of  action  which 
furnishes  us  with  many  of  our  highest  forms  of  pleas- 
ure and  enjoyment.  Action  with  grace  becomes  art, 
the  play  of  the  soul;  and  the  dance  and  rhythmic  mo- 
tion will  always  be  parts  of  the  joy  of  assurance  of 
the  integrity  of  our  life  and  its  world.  But  the  deep 
significance  of  action  in  the  life  of  man  needs  no 
elaborate  argument. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

(i)   VOLITION  AS  AUTOMATIC  OR  INSTINCTIVE. 

Some  of  the  activities  which  we  described  above  as 
not  in  our  knowledge  or  under  the  control  of  the  will 
might  have  been  instanced  as  automatic  action,  that  is, 
action  that  "causes  itself"  or  takes  place  without  any 
reference  to  will.  It  is  the  kind  of  action  we  get  from 
purely  physical  forces,  in  the  relations  of  physical  ob- 
jects, and  perhaps  oftenest  refers  to  the  tendency  of 
matter  to  recover  its  form  when  it  has  been  disturbed, 
as  when  a  bent  stick  will  become  straight  again  when 
the  force  is  removed.  We  may  distinguish  three  kinds 
of  automatic  action,  and  they  will  be  different  in  many 
ways.  They  will  all  be  alike,  however,  in  that  none 
of  them  will  imply  movement  in  any  part  which  was 
set  a-going  by  forces  outside  of  the  immediate  system 
to  which  the  part  belongs.  Thus  we  may  distinguish 
(1)  tropisms,  or  movements  described  in  their  purely 
physical  aspects;  (2)  reflex,  or  movements  that  can  be 
definitely  referred  to  a  specific  source  within  the  sys- 
tem of  parts  where  it  takes  place;  since  this  relation 
can  often  be  isolated  and  the  point  of  origin  named, 
this  type  of  action  might  expressively  be  called  cir- 
cular; and  (3)  habit,  or  movement  without  an  origin 
in  a  definite  point,  but  within  the  complex  of  a  pre- 
viously established  organization  of  parts.  It  is  the 
outstanding  case  of  the  executive  effectiveness  of  the 


150  THE  LIFE  OF   MIND 

I;h  i  of  order  or  organization.    Wc  shall  take  .up  these 
forms  separately  for  discussion. 

(1)  Tropistic  action  is  a  purely  physical  fact,  or  at 
best  a  fact  of  the  body,  and  as  a  consequence  we  are 
interested  in  it  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  activities  which  are  more  directly  our  con- 
cern. By  saying  that  the  activity  called  tropism  is  a 
purely  physical  fact  means  that  it  is  as  widely  sep- 
arated from  the  facts  of  mind  as  it  is  possible  for  a 
fact  to  be  in  this  world.  It  would  then  be  identical 
with  the  movements  of  sticks  and  stones,  and  would 
be  the  pure  movement  which  we  think  of  as  caused 
only  by  the  application  of  external  force.  That  is, 
movement  of  an  .object  would  be  thought  of  as  caused 
by  something  outside  of  the  object.  As  we  said  al- 
ready, this  kind  of  movement  is  of  only  incidental  in- 
terest to  us.  But  when  we  speak  of  tropisms  as  bio- 
logical or  physiological  we  raise  a  great  number  of 
difficulties  as  well  as  find  some  interesting  hints  at  a 
possible  explanation  of  this  as  one  of  the  simplest 
forms  of  action.  In  this  case  action  takes  place  within 
living  tissue  instead  of  in  dead  and  inert  matter. 
Somehow,  then,  we  have  to  think  of  the  activity  as 
having  its  cause  or  origin  within  the  body  which 
moves.  And  a  body  which  moves  itself  is  a  very  great 
problem  when  you  undertake  to  think  out  all  of  what 
it  means.  Almost  inevitably  we  tend  to  think  of  the 
moving  body  as  in  some  mysterious  way  two  and  not 
merely  one.  Movement  becoming  action  is  the  hard- 
est problem  a  theory  of  unity  ever  has  to  face,    That 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  151 

is,  we  think  of  the  body  as  a  bit  of  pure  matter  and 
then  explain  its  activity  as  due  to  some  mysterious 
agency  or  potency  which  occupies  the  body  as  its 
"soul."  But  when  we  reflect  that  we  find  these  con- 
ditions of  activity  in  the  very  lowest  and  least  forms 
of  life,  in  some  forms  so  small  as  not  to  be  visible  to 
the  naked  eye,  and  in  other  forms  so  objectionably  re- 
pulsive as  to  make  us  shrink  from  them  in  horror,  we 
hesitate  to  think  of  them  as  having  anything  in  any 
way  appoaching  a  soul. 

And  yet  in  spite  of  any  feeling  we  may  have  on  the 
matter  of  the  "life"  of  the  lowly  organisms,  we  are 
obliged  to  say  that  in  so  far  as  can  be  determined  the 
life  which  these  lowly  forms  display  is  identical  with 
the  life  which  energizes  our  own  bodies.  x\nd  if  we 
are  to  connect  the  life  process  in  our  bodies  with  the 
mind  processes,  then  we  have  to  meet  the  question  as 
to  whether  the  small  form  may  not  also  have  a  "mind." 
But  to  come  to  the  point  which  specially  interests  us, 
these  activities  of  small  organisms  are  precisely  simi- 
lar, so  far  as  we  know,  to  the  activities  of  the  cells  of 
our  bodies.  We  must  think  of  the  body  then  as  com- 
posed of  a  vast  number  of  small  particles  of  matter 
which  have  their  own  appropriate  forms  of  activity. 
Further,  we  must  think  of  all  these  millions  of  cells, 
each  infused  in  some  way  with  its  own  life,  as  work- 
ing together  for  the  accomplishment  of  ends  which  the 
cells  could  not  accomplish  for  themselves.  That  is, 
the  tissue  particles,  together  with  their  life  functions, 
are  organized;  that    is,   they   are   disposed   with   such 


152  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

reference  to  each  other  that  their  separate  activities 
combine  to  produce  an  end  or  result  for  the  whole. 
It  is  this  character  of  organization  which  distinguishes 
the  higher  forms  from  those  effected  by  tropisms.  The 
tropism  differs  from  the  ordinary  instance  of  force  in 
that  its  combinations  produce  actions  with  reference 
to  ends,  whereas  the  addition  of  instances  of  force  will 
never  produce  anything  but  a  greater  force — no  new 
quality  of  the  life  of  the  world  will  ever  be  explained 
by  combining  forces.  Tropistic  actions  are  not  there- 
fore mere  forces,  but  agencies  of  the  peculiar  power  of 
order  which  manipulates  their  life  with  reference  to 
the  whole.  And  in  the  last  analysis,  all  the  higher 
forms  of  activity,  however  ethereal  or  noble  they  may 
be,  must  trust  to  the  tropism  to  get  themselves  ex- 
pressed in  outward  or  material  form.  We  see  then 
the  peculiar  quality  of  the  tropism  in  its  capacity  to 
reproduce  itself  in  enlarged  and  multiplied  forms  in 
beings  which  express  its  own  nature.  You  can  make 
a  living  form  out  of  living  forms  only;  dead  forms 
may  be  reproduced  in  other  and  different  kinds;  life 
alone  is  true  to  its  kind. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

(il)    VOLITION   AS    TRAINED    INSTINCT,    OR  REFLEX. 

Above  it  was  said  that  elementary  tropisms  repro- 
duce themselves  in  organization.  We  are  now  to  take 
up  one  of  the  simplest  forms  of  organized  tropistic 
body-order  and  show  just  what  the  organization  means 
in  the  complex  life  of  the  whole.  It  was  noted  that 
the  life  of  the  element  reproduces  itself  within  its  kind, 
though  with  all  the  infinite  degrees  and  types  of  dif- 
ference, whereas  with  dead  forms  the  differences  are 
external  and  differences  of  kind.  Tropistic  reproduc- 
tion then  is  confined  to  degree  forms,  and  the  divisions 
marked  by  degree  lines  are  properly  called  differentia- 
tions. Then  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  degrees, 
tropistic  forms  may  reproduce  indefinitely  and  yet 
maintain  a  solid  interconnection  of  parts  within  a  sys- 
tem, which  system  will  represent  the  life  of  the  whole. 
We  have  therefore  in  this  the  condition  of  the  work- 
ing together  of  many  of  the  elementary  activities,  and 
we  may  expect  from  this  long  lines  of  activity  which 
purport  an  end  in  which  the  activity  precipitates  it- 
self. These  complex  lines  of  action  we  call  reflexes. 
Aside  from  the  theoretical  interest,  tropisms  have  only 
the  interest  that  comes  from  the  fact  that  they  help  to 
explain  the  structure  of  the  reflex.  But  when  we  come 
to  discuss  the  movements  of  the  organism,  we  shall 
find  that  they  are  relatively  simple.     The  importance 


154  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

of  the  tropisms,  however,  in  the  elementary  processes 
of  digestion,  nutrition,  etc.,  leaves  much  research 
necessary  in  the  field  of  medicine. 

The  reflex  is  most  readily  described  by  means  of 
examples,  and  perhaps  everybody  knows  in  general 
what  is  meant  by  "reflex  action."  You  know  that 
when  you  touch  a  hot  stove  you  jerk  your  hand  away 
before  you  have  time  even  to  think  of  what  you  are 
doing.  And  if  you  will  reflect  a  little  you  will  see 
how  many  of  such  activities  there  are  in  the  ordinary 
processes  of  the  day's  work.  You  wink  your  eyes, 
chew  your  food,  walk,  whistle,  and  perform  most  of 
the  ordinary  functions  without  knowing  it,  in  fact 
while  your  "knowing  machine1'  is  busy  with  something 
else.  You  can  think  hard  and  seriously  on  a  difficult 
or  absorbing  topic  while  you  perform  accurately  many 
of  the  most  delicate  movements.  When  you  walk 
along  the  street  you  pay  no  attention  as  to  where  you 
are  going  to  step  and  may  be  deeply  concerned  in  con- 
versation with  a  friend  or  lost  in  your  own  thought. 
Yet  if  you  approach  a  cross  street  or  meet  a  group  of 
people  you  will  at  once  begin  to  "watch  your  step.1' 
Similarly,  when  you  are  absorbed  in  reading  an  inter- 
esting book  you  will  put  out  your  hand  to  take  up 
your  pipe  or  to  frisk  a  fly  off  your  ear  without  missing 
the  connection  of  your  reading.  All  these  movements 
and  many  thousand  more  make  up  what  we  call  our 
reflex  or  routine  life  of  every  day. 

We  arc  not  concerned,  however,  to  describe  these 
activities  in  detail  and  not   interested   in   them  at   .ill 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  155 

merely  as  movements.  We  want  to  know  how  they 
are  effected  through  the  organism,  and  just  what  they 
have  to  do  with  the  mind.  Ordinarily  one  would  be 
held  responsible  for  the  consequences  of  such  activi- 
ties when  their  exercise  involved  injury,  hence  the 
mind  is  naturally  taken  as  having  something  to  do 
with  their  control  even  though  they  are  performed  un- 
consciously. It  is  therefore  necessary  to  see  in  some 
detail  how  such  activities  are  brought  about.  For 
this  purpose  it  is  convenient  to  make  some  reference 
to  the  structure  of  the  organism.  We  know  in  a  gen- 
eral way  the  relations  of  the  muscles,  or,  taking  them 
as  a  whole,  the  muscular  system,  to  the  system  of 
bones  which  gives  strength  and  solidity  to  the  body. 
Action  in  any  case  is  due  to  the  muscles  pulling  on 
the  bones  to  which  they  arc  tied  by  tendons  or  "lead- 
ers." The  direction  the  movement  is  to  follow  is  de- 
termined by  the  joint  connections  and  by  the  number 
of  pulls  given  from  different  muscles  pulling  at  the 
same  time.  But  what  makes  a  muscle  pull,  anyway? 
We  say  that  an  impulse,  by  which  we  ordinarily  mean 
some  kind  of  energy  or  force,  is  sent  from  the  brain 
to  the  muscle,  and  that  when  it  strikes  the  muscle  the 
latter  contracts.  Now  the  mind  is  supposed  to  have 
connection  in  a  peculiar  way  with  these  impulses 
which  the  brain  sends  out  to  the  muscular  system. 
What  kind  of  connection  that  is  we  do  not  know,  nor 
do  we  need  to  inquire  at  present;  it  is  supposed  that 
in  this  relation  between  the  brain  and  the  muscular 
system,  consciousness  somehow  intervenes.     But  con- 


156  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

sciousness  does  not  always  intervene,  is  not  always 
present  when  the  brain  sends  its  impulses  out  over  the 
body  through  the  nerves.  In  those  cases  where  action 
takes  place  without  the  intervention  of  consciousness, 
especially  if  the  case  is  more  or  less  complex,  there  is 
the  perfect  type  of  the  circular  activity  called  reflex. 
In  these  cases  the  stimulus  arises  from  the  contact  of 
the  sense  organ  with  the  external  world,  as  between 
my  finger  and  the  stove.  The  stimulus  passes  along 
a  nerve  until  it  reaches  the  brain,  where  it  is  aug- 
mented and  directed  out  over  the  nerve  which  will 
connect  it  with  the  appropriate  muscle.  When  the  im- 
pulse strikes  the  muscle  it  contracts  and  draws  the 
bones  and  other  structures  after  it.  Now  all  these 
processes  may  perhaps  go  on  without  the  conscious- 
ness having  any  knowledge  of  them.  They  are  what 
are  called  mechanical  activities  or,  better,  movements. 
It  is  easy  to  see  the  very  important  part  which  these 
activities  play  in  our  daily  life.  It  is  very  useful  to 
you  not  to  be  obliged  to  think  out  the  place  to  set 
your  foot  when  walking  every  time  you  take  a  step. 
And  if  you  had  to  decide  which  key  of  the  typewriter 
to  strike  next  you  would  never  be  able  to  write  very 
well.  If  you  have  used  a  typewriter,  you  know  that  if 
you  stop  to  think  how  a  word  *s  spelled,  you  will 
likely  misspell  it,  and  this  you  do  just  because  your 
thinking  about  it  interferes  with  the  reflexes  already 
fully  formed.  We  may  say  then  that  the  purpose  of 
reflex  activity  in  the  life  of  the  organism  is  to  per- 
form successfully  our  routine  processes  and  leave  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  157 

mind  free  to  go  about  more  important  matters.  And 
it  is  one  of  the  tasks  of  education  to  provide  the  in- 
dividual with  a  set  of  activities  which  will  leave  him  a 
free  mind.  But  perhaps  it  is  to  be  said  that  the  mind 
never  loses  completely  its  connection  with  these  activi- 
ties, and  that  it  in  some  unconscious  way  still  keeps 
some  measure  of  control  over  them.  Only  on  a  basis 
of  some  such  supposition  can  we  find  any  explanation 
for  many  common  experiences.  While  everything  is 
going  well,  you  are,  for  example,  not  aware  of  the 
keys  of  the  typewriter  as  you  strike  them,  but  once 
you  have  struck  the  wrong  hey  you  are  aware  of  hav- 
ing made  a  mistake.  You  are  not  conscious  of  these 
processes  while  they  are  going  on,  but  after  they  have 
happened  you  are  conscious  of  their  having  been  in- 
correctly executed.  This  fact  would  be  hard  to  ex- 
plain if  we  should  take  it  for  granted  that  the  mind 
had  nothing  to  do  with  them  while  they  were  hap- 
pening. It  would  be  hard  to  see  how  the  mind  could 
know  they  had  happened  even  while  it  did  not  know 
them  while  happening.  Such  cases  may  involve  more 
than  mere  reflex  activities,  but  reflexes  are  a  very  im- 
portant part  of  such  situations.  In  any  case  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  that  reflex  activities  make  up  a  large 
part  of  the  life  of  the  organism,  and  that  under  cer- 
tain circumstances  they  become  parts  of  the  life  of 
the  mind. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

(Ill)    VOLITION   AS  LEARNED  REACTION,   OR  HABIT. 

There  is  another  large  class  of  activities  which  in- 
volve the  question  of  how  far  and  to  what  extent  and 
in  what  sense  the  mind  has  control  over  them.  These 
are  the  complex  systems  of  organized  movements  com- 
monly called  habits.  It  is  perhaps  true  to  say  that 
habits  do  not  differ  in  essentials  from  reflexes,  and  the 
important  differences  have  to  do  with  the  degree  of 
complexity  of  movement  involved,  and  with  the  pre- 
cise relations  which  the  two  types  of  activity  bear  to 
mind  considered  as  the  instrument  of  control.  It  is  a 
familiar  fact  that  we  regard  ourselves  as  responsible 
for  our  habits,  especially  for  our  "bad"  ones,  and  yet 
we  know  that  in  perhaps  most  cases  habit  has  already 
led  us  to  act  before  "will"  has  made  up  the  mind.  This 
seems  to  mean  that  there  are  elements  both  of  me- 
chanical or  reflex  action  and  of  free  or  chosen  activity, 
and  the  double  nature  of  habit  is  likely  what  gives  it 
both  its  very  great  importance  and  its  unusual  inter- 
est. For  neither  its  importance  nor  its  strong  appeal 
to  the  imagination  can  very  well  be  questioned. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  its  kinship  with  reflex 
action,  habit  is  then  primarily  a  question  of  complex- 
ity. Instead  of  a  single  simple  action  or  movement 
within  a  comparatively  simple  set  of  organic  parts,  a 
habit  represents  a  number,  often  a  very  great  number. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  159 

of  movements  connected  with  each  other  through  a 
larger  set  of  organic  parts.  A  simple  reflex  may  in- 
volve a  single  sensation  as  the  point  where  it  begins, 
a  single  nerve  line  to  connect  the  sense  organ  with  a 
nerve  center,  another  nerve  line  to  connect  the  center 
with  the  proper  muscle,  the  result  being  the  simplest 
possible  arrangement  of  structures  through  which  a  re- 
flex can  be  effected;  at  least  this  is  the  minimum  re- 
quirement from  the  point  of  view  of  theory.  Thus  if 
I  put  my  finger  on  a  hot  object,  a  single  muscle  may 
contract  to  draw  it  away  from  the  disturbing  object. 
But  in  the  case  of  habit  there  are  usually  many  move- 
ments involved,  and  these  may  come  one  after  an- 
other so  that  the  whole  habit  will  take  up  a  consider- 
able time.  I  have  a  long  string  of  movements  con- 
nected with  each  other  in  the  process  of  writing  on 
the  typewriter,  and  the  whole  string  will  reel  itself 
off  the  moment  the  first  one  takes  place.  If  we  regard 
the  first  simple  movement  as  a  reflex,  then  we  may 
say  that  the  first  reflex  serves  as  a  stimulus  for  the 
next  movement,  this  last  again  to  the  next  move- 
ment, and  so  on  until  the  whole  set  gets  expressed 
in  a  completed  activity  like  that  involved  in  writing 
a  complete  sentence.  A  habit  is  then  made  up  of  a 
group  of  reflexes  so  connected  as  to  work  out  a  com- 
plex purpose. 

Hut  perhaps  a  more  important  matter  is  the  differ- 
ent ways  in  which  habit  and  reflex  are  related  to  con- 
sciousness. It  can  perhaps  be  said  that  a  reflex  has 
no  definable   relation   to   consciousness,   that    it    is   its 


160  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

peculiar  nature  to  be  automatic.  But  this  only  means 
that  they  are  not  set  a-going  by  consciousness.  It 
does  not  mean,  since  it  would  not  be  true,  that  con- 
sciousness, or,  preferably,  mind,  is  not  involved  in  any 
way,  for  in  the  case  of  many  reflexes  we  are  conscious 
of  them  immediately  after  they  have  happened.  I  do 
not  "will"  to  bat  my  eyes,  the  moveVnent  of  the  eyelids 
does  not  follow  because  I  have  decided  to  move  them, 
although  I  am  aware,  or  may  be,  of  the  movement  at 
once  after  it  has  taken  place.  The  eyelids  close  when 
something  approaches  which  might  injure  the  eyes,  or 
when  the  surface  of  the  eyeball  tends  to  become  dry, 
and  the  approaching  object  or  the  dry  condition  of 
the  surface  is  all  that  is  needed  to  bring  about  the 
movement.  But  after  the  movement  has  taken  place 
I  am,  or  may  be,  conscious  of  it  because  the  movement 
of  the  lids  has  given  rise  to  other  sensations  which  re- 
sult in  consciousness.  And  it  may  be  that  the  feeling 
which  comes  at  any  time  from  all  the  sensory  tracts 
which  are  stimulated  at  that  time  is  itself  just  what 
we  mean  by  consciousness,  although  there  are  many 
reasons  for  believing  that  consciousness  is  vastly  more 
complex  than  this,  and  that  it  contains  other  than 
sensory  elements.  But  the  sensations  and  feelings 
that  come  from  our  moving  members  are  very  impor- 
tant and  perhaps  constitute  what  we  feel  to  be  the  di- 
rect experience  of  "will." 

Another  striking  feature  of  habit  is  the  fact  that, 
as  an  organized  system  of  reflexes,  a  given  habit  tends 
to  persist   indefinitely   in  the  life  of  the  organism  so 


THE  LIFE  OE  MINI)  L61 

long  as  it  is  used  as  the  expression  of  some  purpose. 
This  tendency  to  "stick"  is  what  we  think  of  first 
whenever  habit  is  mentioned.  Since  these  organized 
groups  of  reflexes  do  tend  to  persist,  the  whole  sum  of 
them  tends  to  make  up  and  control  all  the  movements 
which  the  individual's  life  represents.  This  suggests 
another  trait  of  habit,  that  which  we  think  of  as  tend- 
ing to  determine  the  individual's  action  in  a  given  case, 
as  if  habit  were  some  peculiar  and  mystical  agency 
which  decides  whether  a  proposed  action  may  or  may 
not  get  expression.  That  is,  we  think  of  habit  as  it- 
self active,  as  if  habit  were  something  more  than  just 
the  organized  movements  of  one's  life.  But  it  is  after 
all  an  insight  into  a  very  important  truth — namely,  the 
truth  that  after  a  large  body  of  movements  become 
organized  into  a  more  or  less  fixed  system,  they  do 
determine  the  form  and  direction  of  any  new  move- 
ment which  may  offer  itself  for  execution.  So  many 
typical  paths  are  laid  down  in  previous  oft-repeated 
movements  that  most  any  movement  that  may  be  sug- 
gested will  find  its  direction  and  the  object  in  which 
it  will  end  already  determined  for  it.  This  means,  of 
course,  that  sooner  or  later  one's  character  gets  "set" 
so  that  his  actions  can  be  predicted  with  a  reasonable 
degree  of  certainty — not,  however,  because  they  are 
"determined,"  but  because  they  are  prepared  in  ad- 
vance in  the  previous  organization  of  habitual  move- 
ments. I  say  organization  in  and  of  habitual  move- 
ments, not  structures;  it  is  nonsense  to  speak  as  if 
only  sensible  objects  were  amenable  to  organization, 


162  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

even  to  organization  that  is  "fixed."  The  propulsive 
character  of  habit  is  simply  a  case  of  the  general  fact 
that  organization  assumes  an  executive  capacity 
merely  and  solely  by  virtue  of  its  organization,  or  the 
fact  that  order  becomes  dynamic  and  creative  in  pro- 
portion to  its  degree  of  completeness,  completeness 
of  organization  referring  both  to  the  degree  of  mutual- 
ity of  reference  of  internal  parts  and  to  the  adequacy 
of  connections  with  other  objects  through  external  re- 
lations. This  executive  trait  in  the  life  of  mind  cannot 
be  fully  described  in  mere  terms  of  habits  and  move- 
ments in  the  organism.  It  involves  a  full  discussion 
of  the  nature  of  ideas  as  they  appear  in  the  higher 
processes  of  reason,  and  as  they  appear  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  higher  forms  of  feeling  experience  which 
we  call  emotion.  Higher  in  this  sense  refers  of  course 
to  the  completeness  of  organization  as  just  now  de- 
fined. Will  in  the  strict  sense  as  the  executive  power, 
and  its  relations  to  movements  and  to  the  objects  of 
a  world,  can  get  adequate  discussion  only  after  reason 
and  emotion  have  been  fully  understood.  But  then  in 
that  case  the  ''mystery"  with  which  will  is  surrounded 
in  the  popular  mind  will  have  been  dispelled,  and  will 
itself  will  become  an  object  toward  which  our  impulses 
to  control  may  be  profitably  directed. 

Habit  is  the  essentially  practical  aspect  of  life,  and 
it  is  through  the  processes  of  habit  formation  that  one 
may  hope  to  determine  the  character  of  his  future. 
Already  enough  of  the  nature  and  character  of  habit 
has  been  disclosed,  and  it  may  be  worth  while  to  give 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  163 

in  very  brief  form  some  of  the  rules  which  one  may 
adopt  in  order  to  build  out  completely  his  own  or- 
ganized life  of  habit.  These  rules  can  perhaps  never 
be  better  stated  than  they  have  been  by  Professor 
James  in  his  ''Psychology,  Briefer  Course",  New  York, 
1905,  pp.  145-150,  which  has  become  so  universally 
recognized  that  almost  any  one  may  have  access  to  it 
in  a  public  library.  We  shall  make  here  only  brief 
quotations,  but  we  cannot  do  better  than  to  refer  the 
reader  to  the  entire  passage  as  indicated  above,  and  to 
the  book  as  a  whole. 

Professor  James  gives  the  first  rule  thus:  ."  ...  in 
the  acquisition  of  a  new  habit,  or  the  leaving  off  of  an 
old  one,  we  must  take  care  to  launch  ourselves  witJi 
as  strong  and  decided  an  initiative  as  possible." 

The  second  rule:  ''Never  suffer  an  exception  to  oc- 
cur till  the  new  habit  is  securely  rooted  in  your  life." 

The  third  rule:  "Sieze  the  very  first  possible  op- 
portunity to  act  on  every  resolution  you  make,  and  on 
every  emotional  prompting  you  may  experience  in  the 
direction  of  the  habits  you  aspire  to  gain" 

As  a  final  rule:  "Keep  the  faculty  of  effort  alive  in 
you  by  a  little  gratuitous  exercise  every  day" 

The  short  account  of  habit  as  given  in  the  passages 
referred  to  above  in  the  "Psychology,  Briefer  Course", 
pages  145-150,  inclusive,  should  be  read  by  every  one 
who  is  desirous  of  cultivating  a  power  over  his  habits 
in  the  formation  for  himself  of  a  significant  character, 
and  is  worth  more  than  tons  of  the  literature  which 
comes  out  in  every  generation  offering  quick  and  pain- 


164  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

less  and  easy  methods  for  the  acquisition  of  habits  and 
the  building  up  of  character.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly 
insisted  upon  that  the  life  of  habit  is  relatively  simple, 
and  that  the  methods  of  its  formation  lie  already  in 
the  capacities  of  the  individual  who  has  had  a  reason- 
able home  training  and  an  intelligence  of  the  order  of 
that  implied  in  a  common  school  education. 


PART  V. 

MIND     AS     OBJECTIVE — THE     SYNTHESIS     OF     KNOWING 
AND  ACTION. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

MIND  AS   IMAGINATION. 

We  have  come  in  a  number  of  connections  to  the 
point  where  we  seemed  to  be  in  the  very  presence  of 
the  mystery  of  mind  itself.  Thus  in  describing  the 
processes  of  recognition  and  certain  of  the  aspects  of 
perception,  the  peculiar  nature  of  mind  seemed  to  lie 
not  far  distant;  but  yet  it  seemed  to  remain  just  be- 
yond our  grasp.  And  this  will  perhaps  always  be  true; 
for  if  the  mind  could  grasp  and  report  to  us  the  inner 
mysteries  of  the  mind  itself,  still  the  act  whereby  the 
mind  grasped  its  own  inner  nature  would  itself  become 
the  ultimate  mystery.  The  reality  of  the  mind  ap- 
pears therefore  to  be  just  beyond  the  reach  of  its  own 
powers  of  apprehension,  and  complete  self-knowledge 
seems  therefore  to  be  impossible  so  long  as  human 
nature  is  constituted  as  it  is  at  present.  But  this,  we 
shall  find,  is  not  necessarily  true.  Far  greater  things 
than  fundamental  changes  in  human  nature  have  hap- 
pened in  this  world;  even  though  the  universal  as- 
sumption is  that  human  nature  cannot  change  except 
by  miracle  and  the  intervention  of  extra-human  pow- 
ers;  and,  if  we  would  be  honest  with  ourselves  and 


166  II  Ii:  LIFE  OF  MINI) 

with   the   facts,  we  could  see  where   many  essential 
changes  have  been  effected  in  human  nature  itself. 

What  is  really  meant  by  reference  to  the  mind  as 
mystery  is  the  fact  that  our  knowledge  is  not  ordi- 
narily and  habitually  of  the  mind,  but  is  always  of  ex- 
ternal objects.  Even  when  we  by  psychological  intro- 
spection, or  by  looking  directly  into  our  own  minds, 
bring  mental  facts  themselves  into  the  focus  of  atten- 
tion, these  mental  facts  come  there  as  external  objects, 
and  are  just  as  "outside"  our  mind  as  the  veriest  of 
gate-posts  or  the  dirtiest  of  brick-bats.  Our  knowl- 
edge is  therefore  always  of  outside  objects,  and  it 
gives  us  insight  into  the  nature  of  mind  only  as  that 
nature  is  disclosed  within  and  among  the  relations  of 
the  objects  which  make  up  the  solid  contents  of  life. 
These  objects  are  outside  mind  in  the  sense  that  they 
form  the  structural  frame  of  our  practical  experiences 
and  thus  make  up  what  we  know  as  the  world  of 
things.  But  they  are  outside  mind  in  another  and  far 
more  important  sense.  If  we  must  think  of  mind  pri- 
marily as  the  sum  of  these  processes  now  at  this  in- 
stant operating  within  me  to  give  significance  to  my 
relations  to  things,  then  certain  kinds  of  things  which 
cannot  be  found  within  the  ordinary  scheme  of  things 
of  the  practical  life  are  outside  that  mind  in  the  sense 
thai  definiteness  and  precision  cannot  be  given  to  their 
qualities,  but  they  appear  to  the  mind  as  the  comple- 
tion of  certain  aspects  of  the  relations  of  things  as 
they  now  stand  in  my  mind.  Perhaps  we  can  make 
this  clearer.     As  the  things  which  make  up  my  mind 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  167 

now  seem  never  quite  fixed  and  perfect  in  their  forms 
or  order,  but  lack  certain  characters  which  my  pur- 
poses demand  of  them,  certain  objects  persist  in  com- 
ing in  to  fill  up  the  gaps  made  by  unfulfilled  relations, 
and  they  fill  these  gaps  precisely  because  they  do  not 
come  with  the  definiteness  of  sense  qualities.  This  is 
not  saying,  of  course,  that  they  have  no  definiteness  at 
all,  for  organized  definiteness  of  meaning  is  all  that 
can  be  found  as  the  definition  of  an  object.  But  what 
we  do  mean  is,  that  whereas  the  ordinary  objects  of 
experience  have  their  definiteness  in  sense  qualities 
as  felt,  there  are  objects  of  experience  whose  quali- 
ties, although  sensory  in  origin  and  meaning,  are  not 
jtit,  and  are  "there"  without  any  implications  of  being 
producible  in  the  practical  world  as  we  now  know  it, 
although  some  sort  of  reference  to  the  practical  world 
is  precisely  what  the  object  in  all  its  forms  means. 
An  object  may  therefore  be  an  object  outside  the  mind 
even  while  all  its  qualities  are  strictly  mental  in  na- 
ture, and  it  is  such  precisely  because  it  is  now  an  ob- 
ject which  is  concrete  and  real  in  every  particular,  but 
which  now  lies  in  an  environment  which  is  not  yet. 

This  of  course  sounds  pretty  much  like  nonsense, 
and  will  be  nonsense  to  the  mind  of  any  one  who  is 
happy  with  the  usual  descriptions  of  the  life  of  mind. 
It  is  just  of  the  nature  of  the  mind  to  have  in  it  ob- 
jects whose  characters  include  all  the  qualities  of  sense, 
together  with  others  which  are  not  directly  sensory  in 
origin  and  not  sensory  at  all  in  meaning,  while  yet 
those  objects  are  not  discoverable  in  the  world  of  space 


168  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

and  time,  and  which  are  known  while  they  are  in  the 
mind  not  to  be  existent  in  space  and  time,  but  yet  are 
known  as  real  and  to  which  the  present  environment 
or  world  in  space  and  time  must  be  made  to  conform. 
The  mind  has  therefore  in  it  now  not  only  the  objects 
which  are  actual  or  now  realizable  in  practical  experi- 
ence, but  also  objects  which  are  impossible  from  the 
>oint  of  view  of  their  realization  in  space  and  time, 
md  this  is  true  not  only  in  and  for  a  sentimental  the- 
ory of  "ideas",  but  in  the  most  hard-headed  matter-of- 
fact  descriptions  of  things  as  they  are.  Hence  it  is 
true  that  things  and  relations  which  are  inconsistent 
and  will  not  fit  together  in  our  world,  do  fit  together 
in  the  world  which  their  inconsistencies  in  this  world 
require  to  be  created,  and  since  the  latter  world  may 
be  created  now,  objects  and  relations  exist  actually 
which  are  both  consistent  and  inconsistent.  This  in- 
consistency in  our  actual  world  we  call  time,  which  is 
the  expression  of  the  necessity  of  holding  ideas  and 
objects  both  consistent  and  contradictory  as  the  basis 
of  our  obligation  to  action  in  any  present  case.  Thus 
we  say  of  time  both  that  it  is  the  symbol  of  the  imper- 
fection of  our  world,  which  is  a  root  doctrine  in  all 
religion,  and  that  "time  will  tell",  meaning  that  the 
imperfection  will  disappear  in  its  opposite  and  be 
shown  illusory  at  the  same  time  that  we  know  that 
its  actuality  is  the  condition  of  the  more  perfect  re- 
ality which  we  attribute  to  it  because  of  the  necessi- 
ties of  action.  That  is,  for  practical  purposes,  and  as 
a  condition  of  action,  affectations  of  mind  assume  ma- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  169 

tcriality  and  become  the  real  in  a  purposed  event  ante- 
cedently to  its  occurrence. 

It  is  this  function  in  the  life  of  mind  which  explains 
not  only  the  meaning  of  the  distinction  between  past 
and  future,  but  also  the  fact  that  we  always  refer  both 
past  and  future  to  the  present.  For  it  is  clear  from-r 
what  was  said  above  that  past  and  future  are  mere 
aspects  of  the  now  of  present  experience.  This  ca- 
pacity to  throw  your  world  together  and  center  it 
upon  a  particular  point,  to  create  objects  where  there 
are  none  but  where  objects  are  required,  to  order  your 
world  differently  from  the  way  in  which  it  everlast- 
ingly is  ordered  and  to  change  orders  which  you  know 
to  be  fixed,  seems  then  to  be  the  very  genius  of  the 
mind  itself,  and  we  must  see  more  clearly  how  it  works. 

That  mind  can  make  real  objects  where  there  are 
none,  can  produce  types  of  organization  of  objects 
which  only  exist  in  the  future,  and  can  make  these 
real  but  unrealized  objects  and  orders  the  determining 
or  controlling  factors  in,  and  the  foundation  for  the 
life  of  the  present,  is  the  mystery  called  imagination 

As  a  general  function  of  mind,  as  perhaps  the  very 
essence  of  mind  itself,  which  explains  all  other  func- 
tions as  mere  adaptations  of  itself,  it  appears  in  our 
experience  in  a  variety  of  forms  which  it  is  our  busi- 
ness now  to  describe  in  such  detail  as  we  may  find 
possible. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

(i)     IMAGINATION    AS    INSTINCT. 

Perhaps  the  simplest  form  of  the  function  of  imagi- 
nation is  what  we  ordinarily  call  instinct.  The  com- 
mon account  of  instinct  will  tell  you  that  it  is  primar- 
ily a  tendency  to  act  and  feel  in  characteristic  ways  in 
the  presence  of  appropriate  stimuli.  To  this  point  of 
view  we  can  have,  of  course,  no  particular  objection, 
since  it  represents  perhaps  the  customary  meaning  of 
the  word  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  the  authoritative 
meaning.  And  these  two  forces,  custom  and  authority, 
do  most  of  our  thinking  for  us;  it  is  therefore  impor- 
tant to  recognize  the  fact  that  they  are  sometimes 
right.  Besides,  the  statement  as  given  is  perhaps  true 
in  detail,  and  would  have  to  be  accepted  by  everybody 
for  all  that  it  means.  The  only  question  is  therefore 
whether  it  means  all  it  should,  whether  the  elements 
of  feeling  and  action  with  the  organic  processes 
through  which  they  are  mediated  constitute  all  there 
is  to  describe  in  connection  with  the  facts  in  which  in- 
stinct manifests  itself.  The  fact  that  we  have  spoken 
of  instinct  as  a  form  of  imagination  shows  that,  as  we 
see  it,  the  term  represents  facts  which  are  neither 
feelings  nor  actions,  but  more  closely  allied  to  the 
facts  of  those  systems  which  we  vaguely  designate  as 
cognitive  or  knowing  or  sensory  experiences.  In  any 
case,  any  description  of  instincts  that  is  more  than  a 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  171 

lesson  in  physics  or  "social  psychology"  must  finally 
undertake  to  interpret  action  and  feeling  to  some  ex- 
tent in  terms  of  mind,  and  the  mussy  results  that  fol- 
low the  attempt  seem  to  indicate  that  a  better  pro- 
cedure would   presuppose   as  important   a  degree   of 
"consciousness"  as  an  element  in  instinct  at  the  start. 
For  it  certainly  is  true  that  you  can't  get  conscious- 
ness out  of  what  is  purely  organic  and  physical,  any 
more  than  and  for  the  same  reason  that  you  cannot 
get  blood  out  of  a  turnip.    Instincts  do  have  some  sort 
of  necessary  relation  to  consciousness.     Besides,  the 
term  feeling  in  all  accounts  is  ambiguous,  since  it  does 
or  does  not  imply  consciousness  as  the  theory  requires. 
But  first  let  us  see  how  far  the  theory  which  inter- 
prets instinct  altogether  in  terms  of  action  and  feeling 
can  go.    And  we  shall  see  that  it  goes  a  long  way  to- 
ward marking  the  ordinary  activities  of  animals  un- 
derstandable when   considered   as  machines,   or  as  a 
system  of  moving  parts  that  implies  a  fixed  end.    We 
have  explained   the   relatively   simple  activity   called 
reflex.     We  saw  that  all  it  implies  is  an  irritable  or 
sensitive  organic  structure  in  contact  with  the  outside 
world,  a  connecting  structure  with  attachment  to  the 
central  nervous  tissue,  a  connective  structure  leading 
from    the    central    nervous    tissue,    and    a    structure 
adapted   to  producing  motion.     We  say   that  this  is 
"all"  that  a  "simple"  reflex  means!     But  look  at  the 
simplicity  for  a  moment.     In  the  first  place,  the  "or- 
ganic structure  in  connection  with  the  outside  world" 
is  already  almost  inconcievably  complex,  already  im- 


172  THE  LIFE  OF  MINI) 

plies  vastly  more  than  any  instinct  theory  does  or  can 
explain,  takes  for  granted  facts  that  cannot  be  given 
any  meaning  under  mechanistic  principles;   takes  for 
granted  so  much  in  fact  and  principle  that  just  why 
these  tissues  should  make  just  the  contacts  they  do 
make,  or  any  contacts  at  all  for  that  matter,  is  not, 
and  on  the  theory  cannot  be,  explained.     Why  there 
should  sometimes   exist   the  consciousness  of  "hard" 
when   my   finger   touches   the   table,   and  should   not 
exist  when  a  pencil  or  a  tomahawk  touches  the  table, 
can  never  be  explained  in  terms  of  mere  activity  and 
feeling.     That  is,  there  is  a  thousand  times  more  as- 
sumed in  the  nature  and  structure  of  a  sense  organ 
than  we  know,  and  in  fact  what  we  assumed  about  the 
structure  of  the  sense  organ  would  be  ridiculous  if  it 
did  not  also  assume  something  more  than  structure  and 
activity.     Again,   assuming   "conductivity"   as   a   ca- 
pacity of  all  matter,  why  should  what  is  conducted  by 
a  nerve  fiber  issue  in  a  peculiar  form  of  activity?   And 
how  and  why  should  central  nervous  tissue  have  ca- 
pacities and  functions  not  possessed  by  other  struc- 
tures?    We  can  say,  as  we  do  say,  that  these  peculiar 
forms  of   activity   are   consequences   of   "specialized" 
structures,  but  unless  we  watch  such  a  mode  of  ex- 
planation  pretty  closely   it   soon   becomes   at   best   a 
mere  myth  and  at  worst  a  form  of  magic.    In  fact  the 
very  important  concept  of  adaptation  as  used  in  bi- 
ology is  merely  a  new  and  modern  form  of  the  very 
ancient  mental  habit  of  explaining  a  fact  by  the  as- 
sumption of  a  fact  appropriate  and  competent  to  pro- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  173 

duce  the  first;  and  in  education  adaptation  has  come 
to  mean  something  worse  than  the  mere  "fitting"  to- 
gether of  abstractions.  One  of  the  mysteries  of  imagi- 
nation lies  in  the  fact  that  "mind"  seldom  lacks  an 
explanation  ready  made  for  cases  which  threaten  hard 
work  and  careful  thought. 

The  fact  is,  that  instinct  is  not  explicable  in  terms 
of  structures  and  activities  at  all.  And  we  may  as  well 
give  up  trying  to  deceive  ourselves  with  such  "simple" 
matters.  So  far  as  structure  and  activity  go,  reflex 
and  automatism  are  all  we  can  ever  get;  and  this  is 
plainly  far  short  of  instinct. 

Let  us  see,  then,  if  instinct  is  a  tendency  to  feel.  Al- 
though it  is  extremely  difficult  to  make  such  an  ex- 
pression intelligible  at  all,  the  "tendency  to  feel"  evi- 
dently refers  to  the  fact  that  pretty  much  the  same 
active  manifestations  will  accompany  the  reflex  and 
fixed  reactions  wherever  found.  But  if  these  active  or 
feeling  manifestations  are  to  be  found  only  in  definite 
orders  in  connection  with  movements,  then  they  are 
simple  reactions,  that  is,  are  movements  themselves, 
and  the  tendency  to  act  and  the  tendency  to  feel  are, 
as  is  recognized  by  modern  psychologists,  quite  the 
same  thing.  The  difficulty  comes  from  the  ambiguity 
of  the  term  "act,"  the  psychologists  assuming  that 
action  and  reaction  are  the  same  thing;  but,  as  oc- 
casion requires,  giving  logical  and  even  ethical  impli- 
cations to  action  indiscriminately  with  its  merely 
physiological  meaning.  The  commonest  form  of  this 
fallacy  at  present  is  the  assumption  that  the  "biologi- 


174  THE  LIFE  OF  MINI) 

cal"  represents  a  degree-mean  between  the  pure  physi- 
cal reaction  and  the  real  action,  which  is  essentially  a 
logical  and  ethical,  and  not  a  mechanical,  concept. 
Consequently,  after  the  life  of  the  organism  has  been 
completely  explained  in  terms  of  structure  and  reac- 
tion, assuming  such  to  be  possible,  the  life  of  real 
action  has  been  left  quite  untouched;  and  those  com- 
plex series  of  apparently  unconscious  activities  which 
plainly  have  as  their  end  the  enrichment  of  life  after 
its  mere  existence  and  subsistence  and  persistence  have 
been  provided  for  in  the  structure  of  the  world,  remain 
to  be  explained  not  by  psychologists,  but  by  those  who 
possess  a  knowledge  of  mind. 

It  seems  clear  that  the  attempt  to  explain  instinct  in 
terms  of  structure  and  movement,  especially  when  the 
emphasis  is  so  placed  as  to  imply  that  complexity  of 
structure  and  movement  has  a  constitutional  implica- 
tion, is  on  the  right  track.  It  is  of  course  true  that 
the  given  structure  of  an  organism,  together  with  the 
possibilities  of  movement  which  that  structure  impli- 
cates, is  the  ground  of  the  life  activities  which  give  the 
organism  and  its  form  a  place  in  a  species.  And  it  is 
precisely  the  specific  value  of  such  structures  and 
movements,  that  is,  the  characters  of  the  structures 
and  movements  which  constitute  the  organism  a  mem- 
ber of  a  class  or  species,  which  makes  the  difference 
between  mere  ordered  structure  and  movement  and  the 
organized  life  of  the  organism  which  can  properly  be 
cilled  its  "instincts."  It  is  then  this  specific  value  of 
structure  and  movement   which  we  have  to  explain  if 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  175 

we  arc  to  understand  instinct. 

But  we  have  a  good  beginning  already  made  in  ac- 
cepting the  structure  and  movement  of  the  organism 
as  the  ground  of  instinct.    And  our  problem  is  to  show 
how  that  structure  and  movement  may  be  effective  as 
implying  the  life-order  both  of  the  organism  as  a  liv- 
ing unit  and  as  a  type-symbol  representing  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  species  life.     For  it  is  peculiarly  the 
meaning  of  instinct  to  mediate  the  relation  of  particu- 
lar to  universal,  of  fact  to  law,  and  thus  to  provide  in 
the  continuity  of  the  life  process,  conditioned  as  it  is 
upon   ultimate  change,   the  character  of  permanence 
which  is  taken  as  the  guaranty  of  the  real.    Accepting,  | 
then,  the  reference  of  instinct  to  structure  and  move- 
ment as  the  ground  fact  which  is  to  "explain"  instinct; 
and  accepting  instinct  as  the  tie  which  makes  over  the 
ordinary  tact-connection  between  structure  and  move- 
ment on  the  one  side,  and  life  process  on  the  other, 
into  a  dynamic  and  growth  relation  between  ordered 
permanence  and  organizing  change;   our  problem  be- 
comes, specifically,  one  of  showing  how  such  an  ab- 
stract logical  account  identifies  with  the  facts  as  we 
see  them.     Or,  to  put  the  question  more  simply  still, 
how  do  the  ordinary  mechanically  conditioned   facts! 
of  structure  and  movement  transform  themselves  into 
organism  and  function  in  the  biological  plane,  and  on 
into  body  and  mind  in  the  sphere  of  the  completely, 
real  ? 

Our  answer  is  that  these  transformations  are,  not 
due  to,  but  are,  in  the  first  instance  instincts,  and  in 


176  THE  LIFE  OF   MIND 

their  higher  manifestations,  again  are,  imagination. 
But  this  implies  that  the  two  apparently  widely  dif- 
ferent facts  of  imagination  and  instinct  are  essentially 
one  and  the  same,  and  that  their  apparently  very  great 
differences  are  merely  degree  relations.  The  principle 
upon  which  such  conclusions  will  be  made  to  rest  is 
simple,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  its  illustration  in  cases 
of  fact  is  very  difficult.  It  is  simply  this,  that  order 
as  such,  in  its  peculiar  degree-form  as  the  real,  is  dyna- 
mic or  constitutional  or  creative.  Since,  however,  the 
term  "creative"  ordinarily  contains  many  implications 
of  the  irrational,  and  since  our  principle  must  ulti- 
mately rest  upon  scientifically  demonstrated  fact,  and 
be  thus  purely  rational,  we  shall  here  drop  the  use  of 
the  term  altogether.  Then  order  as  such,  that  is,  by 
virtue  of  the  fact  that  it  is  the  degree-form  of  the  re- 
ality, is  constitutionally  ordered  forms,  forms  consti- 
tuted in  species  by  their  executive  or  effective  con- 
tinuity. 

Let  us  take  simple  cases  in  order  to  show  what  our 
principle  means.  And  we  may  begin  with  a  case  where 
"instinct"  does  not  yet  appear.  A  block  of  ice  floats 
in  a  pail  of  water.  The  pail  stands  on  a  solid  founda- 
tion out  of  reach  of  the  wind,  so  the  relation  between 
the  water  and  the  ice  is  a  mere  continguity,  and  no 
motion  results  so  far  as  perception  shows.  But  as- 
sume that  the  mere  shape  of  the  ice,  as  varying  the 
surface  of  the  contact  with  the  water,  results  in  a  more 
rapid  congelation  on  one  side  than  on  any  of  the 
others;   then  the  ice-floe  will  turn  in  the  direction  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  177 

the  more  rapid  congelation,  that  is,  movement  results. 
To  say  that  the  movement  of  turning  is  a  continuation 
of  the  process  of  distribution  of  heat  is  a  mere  tautol- 
ogy, and  behind  it  is  the  bogey  of  the  infinite  process 
of  "conservation  of  energy,"  which  makes  the  situation 
irrational.  Unless  there  can  be  pointed  out,  or  at 
least  exists,  a  point  beyond  which  a  given  circum- 
scribed group  of  phenomena,  for  the  instance  in  which 
they  occur,  cannot  be  referred  without  involving  the 
infinite  process,  the  situation  is  irrational.  Thus  in 
the  case  of  the  ice  and  its  motion,  the  facts  cannot  be 
referred  beyond  the  shape  of  the  ice-floe,  as  that  shape 
will  effect  itself  within  the  possibilities  presented  to  it 
by  the  characters  of  the  water  and  other  contiguous 
solids.  That  is,  on  the  ground  of  physical  principle, 
no  force  is  required  to  explain  the  fact  of  turning  be- 
yond the  idea  of  force  or  effectiveness  implied  in 
molecular  motions  within  the  ice.  But  the  assumption 
of  antecedent  molecular  movement  as  the  explanation 
of  perceptible  or  molar  movement  is  merely  a  case  of 
reference  to  infinite  process,  and  explains  nothing. 
What  must  be  seen  is  that  no  antecedent  motion  is 
required  to  explain  the  movement  of  the  object,  and 
that  if  the  experience  of  objects  is  to  be  rational  the 
infinite  process  must  be  broken  somewhere  by  the 
interruption  of  the  logically  permanent.  In  the  case  I 
mentioned  the  irrational  process,  as  referring  move- 
ment to  movement  indefinitely,  is  broken  by  the  shape 
or  form  of  the  ice,  and  this  shape  or  form,  just  by 
virtue  of  the  organization  internal  to  it  which  makes 


178  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

it  what  it  is,  is  the  origin  of  the  movement  of  turning. 
Thus  pure  form  becomes  active  agency,  and  as  pure 
idea  may  be  regarded  as  will,  since  its  internal  or- 
ganization gives  it  constitutional  power  of  effecting 
ends  without  reference  to  anything  beyond  itself,  as  it 
acts  upon  its  own  constitutive  elements  as  material. 

This  case,  we  have  already  remarked,  is  evolution- 
ally  "prior"  to  one  involving  instinct.  But,  even  here, 
we  can  see  where  and  how  the  mere  formal  organiza- 
tion of  a  fact  gives  it  powers  which  are  constitutional 
to  still  higher  degrees  of  order,  and  thus  we  can  see 
what  is  meant  in  the  universal  tendency  to  assume  a 
productive  agency  as  the  essence  of  cause,  and  the 
character  of  reality  which  has  made  the  concept  of 
creation  persist  throughout  all  history.  When,  how- 
ever, we  go  on  to  other  and  more  complicated  cases, 
the  speei fie  or  type- fact  which  serves  as  the  key  to  the 
apprehension  of  the  order  which  maintains  the  sys- 
tem of  fact  as  a  permanent  body  is  not  readily  dis- 
tinguished among  the  great  variety  of  detail,  as  was 
the  key-fact  of  shape  in  the  case  mentioned  above,  and 
thus  the  identity  of  order  as  principle  with  a  species 
character  is  not  always  clearly  demonstrable.  Hut  the 
very  structure  of  science  assumes  this  "specific  char- 
acter" which  is  explicative  of  the  continuity  of  life- 
forms  in  species,  and  which  is  thus  the  logical  ground 
of  the  idea  of  universality  as  the  condition  of  all  ex- 
planation. It  is  because  of  this  that,  in  order  that 
thought  may  move  at  all,  a  rational  ground  in  stability 
musl  be  assumed  somewhere;  or,  the  fact  that  thought 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  179 

moves,  is  the  sufficient  reason  for  the  assumption  of 
the  origin  oj  effective  productivity  in  the  order  which 
is  the  condition  of  the  movement  of  thought. 

Then  we  may  say  that,  even  in  the  sphere  of  physi- 
cal reality,  a  ground  as  order  operates  in  advance  of 
the  fact  which  becomes  effective  as  the  beginning  of 
new  reality.  It  seems  also  that  organization  as  real 
process  is  just  the  identification  of  effective  fact  with 
its  appropriate  end-ground,  and  where  this  reference 
becomes  obvious  theoretically  in  fact-forms  in  which 
we  recognize  the  identification  as  growth,  we  have 
passed  from  merely  ordered  to  organized  life,  and  prin- 
ciples of  biological  explanation  begin  to  apply. 

But  where  biological  principles  apply,  the  ground 
order  of  the  relations  among  facts  becomes  effective 
as  functions  both  in  the  life  of  the  individual  organism 
and  the  life  of  the  species.  The  idea  of  function,  how- 
ever, implies  a  purpose  objectified  in  the  relations  of 
the  facts  through  which  the  function  is  expressed,  that 
is,  implies  control  and  direction  in  the  sense  that  the 
ordered  wholeness  which  the  function  is  to  accomplish 
now  operates  in  advance  of  its  existence  to  direct  the 
movements  of  the  facts  which  are  to  create  it.  The 
life  of  the  organism  and  the  elaborate  and  compli- 
cated sets  of  functions  it  performs  would  be  unitel- 
ligible  in  the  absence  of  such  an  assumption,  and  it 
is  interesting  that  the  mere  logical  demand  of  intel- 
ligibility is  being  met  by  empirical  science  in  this  case 
with  the  concepts  of  order  and  wholeness.  It  is  not 
perhaps  unfortunate  that  for  the  scientist,  or  for  many 


ISO  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

of  them  at  least,  the  concept  of  order  is  accepted  as  a 
cause;  for  it  will  necessitate  his  demonstration  of  the 
identity  of  cause  with  ground  and  thus  make  inevitable 
the  recognition  of  purpose  as  effective  order  as  a  scien- 
tific concept.  But  the  possibility  of  fact-orders  being 
effective  in  advance  of  and  antecedently  to  their  ex- 
istence as  fact,  or  in  advance  of  their  being  the  facts 
that  they  will  be,  is  precisely  what  is  meant  by  pur- 
pose, and  the  attribution  to  a  fact-order  of  a  character 
by  which  the  fact-order  is  now  affected  by  the  form 
which  now  is  only  implicit  in  its  order,  but  which  ob- 
jectifies in  the  order  as  the  end-products  of  growth, 

lis  precisely  what  is  meant  by  consciousness.  That  is 
to  say,  a  fact-order  which  is  now  both  what  it  is  and 
what  it  will  be,  and  in  which  both  what  it  is  and  what 

,  it  will  be  identify  in  what  it  means  now,  is  the  con- 
sciousness which,  functioning  as  anticipation  or  fore- 
thought, is  just  the  executive  trait  which  maintains 
(continuously  ''creates"  or  recreates)  the  law  of  the 
iact-order  which  is  itself,  just  as,  functioning  retro- 
spectively as  history  or  afterthought,  it  sustains  the 
fact-order  which  is  itself.  Then  it  is  not  merely  that 
we  have  to  say  that  instinct  is  conscious,  but  that  in- 
stinct is  the  consciousness;  and  while  we  shall  have  to 
explain  very  considerable  differences  between  con- 
sciousness as  instinct  and  its  other  forms,  yet  unless 
we  understand  the  instinctive  movements  of  organisms 
as  consciousness,  it  will  be  impossible  to  show  that  the 
organism,  even  the  human,  is  anything  more  than  a 
machine.     What  has  alwavs  been  the  difficultv  here 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  181 

is  the  assumption  that  consciousness  is  merely  a  mat- 
ter of  increasing  complication,  in  which  case  conscious- 
ness would  have  to  begin  with  some  ascertainable  or 
imaginable  degree  of  complexity  in  fact;  it  has  thus 
been  assumed  that  to  explain  consciousness  an  origin 
must  be  found  in  what  is  not  conscious;  and  this  is 
obviously  contradictory.  But  it  must  be  realized  that 
the  increase  in  complexity  and  intricacy,  to  whatever 
extent  or  to  whatever  degree  of  delicacy,  still  leaves 
fact  as  complex  and  intricate  so  far  without  order,  and 
that  on  the  contrary  the  very  existence  of  complexity 
and  intricacy  in  fact  presupposes  order.  Order  is, 
therefore,  not  derivable  from  complexity;  the  deriva- 
tion, so  far  as  derivation  and  origin  mean  anything, 
is  the  other  way  around.  Order  is  will;  and  will  is 
not  an  origin,  but  an  original. 

Then  functions  in  organisms  are  not  the  stuff  out 
of  which  consciousness  is  made.  When  we  say  that 
functions  are  conscious,  what  we  really  mean  is  the 
very  different  proposition  that  consciousness  is  a  sys- 
tem of  ordered,  or  better,  organized,  functions.  Then 
the  primary  and  characteristic  thing  about  instinct  is 
the  ordered  world  of  mind  which  its  existence  makes 
inevitable  for  thought,  and  which  thought  must  pre- 
suppose in  order  to  make  instinct  intelligible  at  all. 

Only  on  such  a  point  of  view,  it  seems,  can  the  fact 
of  instinct  be  understood.     The  fundamental  instincts 
(if  we  can  properly  use  the  term  in  the  plural)   all 
have  to  do  with  the  essentially  logical  process  of  con-' 
tinuously  identifying  the   individual  with  its  species. 


182  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

the  process  of  maintaining  the  balance  and  order  of 
life  in  the  absence  of  which  the  idea  of  reality 'itself 
is  unthinkable.  In  biological  terms  these  instincts  all 
fall  into  two  or  three  more  or  less  distinct  classes.  But 
these  all  clearly  represent  the  same  anticipative  and 
executive  tendencies  to  maintain  the  species  as  the 
end-order  of  the  life  of  individuals,  and  can  properly 
be  explained  as  belonging  to  the  individual  only  in  the 
sense  that  they  are  the  point  in  the  individual's  con- 
stitution at  which  continuity  with  the  species  is  main- 
tained. They  are  much  more  simply  and  significantly 
regarded  as  universal  functions  of  the  species-order 
operating  retrospectively  in  the  individual  as  the  end 
— the  object  of  imagination  working  historically  in  the 
present  life  of  the  individual  to  make  the  individual 
conscious  (anticipative)  of  its  end,  that  is,  to  show 
the  end  present  there  as  the  explanation  and  meaning 
of  life.  It  is  then  instinct  as  imagination  that  makes 
possible  the  life  of  meanings;  and  the  finality  of  the 
values  of  the  life  of  culture,  in  that  it  shows  the  de- 
pendence of  the  life  of  values  upon  the  maintenance 
of  the  universal  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  uni- 
versal through  instinct,  shows  conclusively  that  "in- 
stincts" are  essentially  forms  of  mind,  and  that  feeling 
and  movement  have  little  to  do  with  them  and  are  en- 
tirely inadequate  to  explain  the  very  great  significance 
which  instinct  has  in  the  life  of  mind. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

(il)    IMAGINATION    AS    IMITATION. 

It  is  this  same  universality  of  the  end  working  con- 
sciously as  imagination  in  every  individual  that  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  uniformity  of  individual  forms  in 
species;  that  is,  it  is  because  every  individual  is  in- 
stinctively conscious  of  the  same  end  and  effectively 
strives  to  attain  it  that  makes  it  possible  for  science 
to  regard  the  individual  as  the  repetitive  unit.  But 
"conscious"  here  does  not  imply  the  clearness  of  the 
rational  processes,  but  symbolizes  rather  the  sum  of 
those  instinctive  functions  which  give  the  organism  a 
structural  and  active  unity.  So  much  alike  both  in 
external  features  and  in  the  inward  law  of  their  na- 
tures do  they  become  in  anticipating  their  common  end 
that  for  descriptive  purposes  their  uniqueness  may  be 
overlooked;  and  il  is  only  when  the  scientific  motive 
is  driven  beyond  the  necessities  of  description  and 
classification  that  science  is  forced  to  recognize,  as  il 
has  had  to  do  recently  with  the  idea  of  ordered  whole- 
ness, that  the  real  nature  of  things  lies  not  in  their 
factual  inevitableness  as  represented  in  the  persistence 
of  their  repetition,  but  rather  in  the  uniformity  of 
their  common  imitation  of  the  orderliness  of  their  com 
mon  attempt  to  execute  or  accomplish  the  whole  as 
their  law.  Just  as  in  the  most  elementary  functional 
form  instinct  as  consciousness  works  automatically,  SO 


184  THE  LIFE  OF  MIXD 

here  instinct  as  automaticity  works  consciously-,  and 
the  result  of  this  is  consciously  ordered  habit,  just  as 
in  the  previous  case  consciousness  becomes  uniform  in 
automatism. 

This  means  that  imagination  operates  in  the  his- 
toric capacity  of  copying  a  pattern.  So  far  as  con- 
sciousness is  the  basis  of  imagination  in  this  case,  it 
is  exhausted  in  working  the  present  data  into  conform- 
ity with  the  end  conceived  as  fixed.  As  fixed,  the  end 
is  to  be  eternally  attained  by  repetition,  and  the  con- 
tinuity of  life  is  a  matter  of  continuous  assimilation 
of  the  factual  to  the  legal.  It  is  through  this  function 
of  the  imagination  that  the  world  gets  the  character 
of  endless  multiplicity  in  fact  and  of  infinite  process 
in  law.  Thus  the  scientific  interest,  whose  ground  is 
essentially  the  multiplication  to  infinity  of  items  whose 
reality  is  exhausted  in  mere  conformity  to  an  arbi- 
trarily instituted  pattern,  comes  to  its  final  issue  (it 
never  ends)  in  the  concept  of  abstract  process,  the 
apotheosis  of  abstract  plurality.  It  is  on  this  fact 
that  science  mistakes  its  aim  of  reducing  to  determin- 
ateness  the  aspect  of  quantity  as  a  universal,  and  it 
is  because  of  this  confusion  of  universality  with  all- 
ness  that  science  so  often  finds  itself  blocked  by  what 
seems  irrational  fact.  But  without  going  further  into 
the  metaphysics  of  the  case,  it  is  readily  seen  that  one 
of  the  characteristic  forms  in  which  imagination  ex- 
presses its  executive  and  constitutive  power  is  that  in- 
volved in  portraying  the  infinity  of  extent  and  quan- 
tity of  our  world,  and  thus  laying  the  basis  for  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  185 

limitlessness  of  opportunity  which  is  presented  to  the 
practical  individual. 

We  can  now  remark  that  whatever  element  of  prin- 
ciple seemed  to  be  lacking  in  our  discussion  of  habit 
and  the  other  facts  of  automatism  in  life  is  supplied 
here  in  the  notion  of  imagination  (while  essentially 
still  an  active  capacity)  as  seeking  only  to  retain  its 
present  by  endless  repetition.  And  if  we  recall  that 
imagination  has  been  described  throughout  as  the 
capacity  of  and  faculty  for  ends,  we  shall  have  to  say 
here  that  bare  sustenance  in  a  uniform  status  of  the 
life  of  mind  is,  under  conceivable  circumstances,  it- 
self an  end.  In  fact  the  conformity  of  life  as  a  whole 
in  its  external  and  plural  aspects  with  the  unity  and 
uniformity  of  its  inner  life  aspect  is  precisely  what  we 
mean  by  the  substantiality  of  life,  is  what  gives  to 
life  its  obvious  quality  of  permanence  and  provides 
for  the  dependableness  of  the  world  which  will  wait 
with  the  end  in  suspense  while  action  is  being  com- 
pleted. 

It  is  this  aspect  of  conscious  dependableness  and 
firmness  which  is  responsible  not  only  for  the  confi- 
dence with  which  science  accepts  an  avowedly  incom- 
plete account  of  reality,  but  also  for  the  faith  which 
makes  long-continued  action  rational  in  the  absence  of 
the  ends  which  are  necessary  to  make  the  action  real. 
It  is  upon  this  dependableness  that  we  depend  when 
we  adventure  upon  a  plan,  and  when  we  determine 
present  action  with  respect  to  what  is  as  yet  unreal- 
ized, we  rest  upon  the  character  furnished  to  our  world 


186  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

by  the  imagination  which  merely  repeats.  Imagina- 
tion as  imitation  is  then  the  ground  and  basis  for  the 
more  strictly  creative  aspects  of  the  mind  life.  It  is 
strictly  the  field  of  science  in  so  far  as  science  rests 
upon  the  elements  of  method  which  it  now  accepts, 
and  as  the  solid  and  uniform  smooth  plane  of  what  is 
reproducible  without  effort,  it  is  the  condition  and 
passive  determinant  of  all  significant  accomplishment. 
It  represents  all  of  what  we  may  take  for  granted  both 
with  reference  to  the  ordinary  course  of  thought  and 
to  the  usual  requirements  of  action. 

Having  thus  drawn  the  picture  of  the  imitative 
aspects  of  imagination  in  the  bare  theoretic  outlines, 
it  may  perhaps  suffice  to  thoroughness  if  we  give  a  few 
illustrations.  All  that  monotonously  distressing  lot  of 
processes  which  make  up  the  content  of  what  is  called 
industry  is  nothing  more  than  a  myriad  of  repetitious 
movements  designed  (when  they  have  any  design)  to 
copy  infinitely  a  fixed  pattern.  Industrial  process  re- 
peats itself  world  without  end,  and  the  only  call  it 
makes  upon  imagination  is  that  involved  in  hewing  to 
the  line  of  the  pattern,  and  the  nearest  approach  to 
originality  it  makes  is  when  it  negatively  fears  any 
tendency  to  variation  from  type.  But  the  repetitive 
motive  reasserts  itself  quickly,  and  any  such  tendency 
as  may  arise  smothers  under  the  volume  of  repetitious 
sameness.  The  "operative1'  (industry  knows  no  per- 
sons) stands  in  the  identical  attitude  through  his  eight 
hours  and  apes  the  movement  of  his  machine;  over 
and  over  he  repeats  the  clew  which  the  machine  fur- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  187 

nishes  him;  the  machine  grinds  and  his  brain  whirls, 
and  neither  of  them  produces  more  than  a  fragment  of 
a  real  thing.  Such  is  the  deadly  lifelessness  of  the 
highly  specialized  piece-work  process  in  which  the 
piece  produced  is  for  the  producer  a  piece  of — nothing. 
But  let  us  not  dwell  on  this  sad  perversion  of  the  life 
of  mind;  if  it  were  not  for  the  quiet  persistence  of 
some  of  the  real  aspects  of  the  repetitive  imagination 
the  life  of  the  race  would  quickly  die  away. 

Among  the  more  significant  of  the  provinces  of 
imagination  as  imitation  are  the  various  departments 
of  art.  But  before  we  misunderstand,  let  us  be  sure 
to  state  that,  while  all  art  in  the  strict  sense  is  mere 
repetition,  yet  repetition  is  not  all  of  art,  and  art  is 
an  instance  of  a  form  of  reality  which  is  sustained  in 
the  richness  of  meaning  by  what  is  not  its  essential 
element.  What  the  essential  element  of  art  is  we  must 
see  in  another  connection;  here  we  must  show  that  as 
repetitive  imagination  its  predominant  character  is  not 
its  essential  character.  By  this  we  mean  that  the 
body  or  the  stuff  of  art  is  the  vague  ponderosity  of 
feeling,  and  that  this  is  essentially  a  matter  of  re- 
peated sensitive  sameness;  while  the  essential  char^ 
acter  of  art  is  rationality,  a  feature  which  generally 
does  not  appear  in  any  aspect  of  its  matter. 

To  show  the  importance  of  sameness  and  repetition 
in  art,  one  need  only  recall  that  in  any  field  there  are 
but  a  few  characteristic  forms  of  beauty,  and  that 
these  are  repeated  to  infinity  by  each  successive  school. 
In  sculpture  the  human   form   furnishes  the   feeling- 


L88  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

material  almost  exclusively,  and  nearly  if  not  quite  all 
forms  of  modelling  in  solid  material  may  be  regarded 
as  supplementations  of  the  feeling  volume  which  the 
human  form  represents.  Thus  the  warrior  stands  with 
sword  in  hand,  the  sword  having  the  very  important 
function  of  giving  point  to  the  excess  and  vigor  of  his 
pent-up  courage — it  is  the  instrument  through  which 
the  artist  draws  off  the  superfluous  energy  of  the  war- 
rior and  transfers  it  to  the  observer;  and  it  localizes 
the  point  around  which  the  figure  balances  just  as  and 
for  the  same  reason  that  the  temperance  reformer  will 
make  the  spigot  the  center  of  a  picture  of  a  barrel  of 
rum.  The  emotional  content-stuff  pours  forth  from 
the  horn  of  plenty  which  the  goddess  carries,  and  the 
flickering  warmth  which  rises  from  the  altar  maiden's 
torch  gives  center  to  the  harmony  which  the  figure  as 
a  whole  carries  to  profusion.  Thus  some  unimportant 
detail  with  the  infinity  of  its  possible  variations  gives 
the  artist  the  means  through  which  the  human  form 
may  be  made  to  express  the  illimitable  boundlessness 
of  human  feeling,  and  the  more  stable  and  harshly 
|  solid  his  material  the  more  sharply  can  he  give  point 
to  the  concreteness  and  immediacy  of  feeling. 

It  might  appear  to  be  carrying  the  point  to  the  verge 
of  the  ridiculous  to  argue  that  architecture  is  a  modifi- 
catory variation  of  the  human  form,  but  it  might  also 
be  the  margin  of  ridiculousness  which  makes  the  ap- 
proach to  the  sublime.  What  we  are  arguing — we 
must  not  lose  sight  of  it— is  that  all  art  is,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  extent  to  which  its  variations  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  189 

form  are  determined  by  the  qualities  of  its  content,  a 
repetition  of  a  few  standard  types.  We  may  agree  , 
here  that  it  is  the  variation  that  is  important  in  the 
specific  art-object,  but  for  art  as  a  universal  experi- 
ence there  are  only  a  few  type-forms.  It  does  not  re- 
quire any  monstrous  stretch  of  imagination  to  see  the 
summer-girl  who  holds  on  her  broad  sun-bonnet 
against  the  heat  and  wind,  and  the  mountain  hut  and 
the  king's  palace  all  as  variations  of  the  same  experi- 
ence-form; and  the  architectural  style  of  churches  and 
public  buildings  differ  from  the  summer-girl's  hat  es- 
sentially only  in  the  numerical  repetition  with  modifi- 
cations of  certain  protective  feelings  and  the  move- 
ments into  which  these  feelings  are  characteristically 
precipitated. 

It  is  thus  easy  to  see  that  imagination  in  its  repeti- 
tive or  imitative  function  represents  large  areas  in  the 
life  of  mind.  It  would  be  easy  to  go  on  to  show  that, 
with  the  human  form,  two  or  three  (perhaps)  char- 
acteristic landscapes,  a  few  types  of  composite  sym- 
metry like  the  mathematical  shapes  and  placings,  e.  g., 
the  arrangement  of  lines,  etc.,  and  the  color  arrange- 
ments, e.  g.,  of  flowers  in  groupings,  etc.,  exhaust  all 
the  possible  art-subjects,  i.  e.,  all  the  possible  types  of 
objects  of  art.  And  when  we  add  to  this  fact  the 
psychological  phenomenon  of  synaesthesia,  the  experi- 
ence in  which  qualities  from  one  sense  field  are  in- 
terpreted in  another,  these  forms,  which  have  all  been 
typical  visual  objects,  can  be  illustrated  equally  well 
in  the  tones  and  auditory  harmonies,  and  with  those 


190  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

lucky  individuals  who  have  a  rich  imagination  of  the 
non-repetitive  type,  the  visual  forms  may  be  repro- 
duced in  muscular  strains,  and  most  if  not  all  of  the 
other  sense  forms.  But  this  point  belongs  properly 
to  another  aspect  of  imagination. 

Then  we  may  say  that  all  imagination  is  char- 
acteristically a  repetition  of  a  few  essential  real-forms; 
but  we  go  on  to  say  that  repetition  is  not  all  of  imagi- 
nation. It  is  clear  that  a  very  large  part  of  the  life  of 
mind  is  invested  in  the  repetitious  multiplication  of  a 
few  of  its  appropriate  embodiments,  and  it  is  this 
maintenance  feature  of  experience  which  gives  to  the 
life  of  mind  its  realized  permanence  and  final  worth. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

(hi)  imagination  as  complication. 

We  mentioned  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  one  of 
the  pronounced  features  of  imagination  as  repetition 
was  the  variation  which  maintains  a  type-form  as  an 
object  of  continued  interest  and  worth,  and  we  re- 
marked that  it  is  this  variation  in  particularity  of  de- 
tail which  makes  the  universality  of  art  the  body 
through  which  the  continuity  of  life  runs  its  eternal 
course.  This  same  variation  in  particularity  has  an- 
other important  aspect  which  we  must  now  describe. 
In  our  discussion  of  imagination  up  to  this  point  we 
have  seen  that  mind  is  engaged  primarily  in  the  sus- 
tenance and  maintenance  of  life  through  the  repro- 
ductive perpetuation  of  life's  elemental  forms.  Thus 
we  saw  in  the  simple  forms  of  instinct  that  mind  as 
imagination  is  busy  with  the  active  striving  with  the 
universal  to  make  the  universal  concretely  obvious  to 
itself  in  a  specific  form.  Over  and  over  again  does 
the  instinct  strive  to  express  the  wholeness  of  life  in  a 
single  mould,  so  imperturbably  does  it  urge  the  form 
to  take  on  the  body  of  particularity  in  a  completed 
act.  It  is  this  longing  love  of  the  lingering  fleshly 
form  that  embodies  itself  in  the  warm  passion  of  in- 
dividuality; and  it  is  thus  as  imagination  that  mind 
peoples  the  world  with  interest-forms  as  the  full  con- 
sciousness which  is  to  come  later.    Thus  the  everlast- 


192  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

ing  attempt  of  life  to  attain  fulness  and  still  to  retain 
the  empty  hunger  for  abundance  leads  it  to  try  a  new- 
curve  or  a  new  color  on  the  old  pattern,  and  to  change 
and  make  over  the  outer  vestment  as  the  urge  of  life 
grows  within.  Let  us  see  how  these  experiments  or 
adventures  of  life  bring  to  its  reality  ever  new  and 
higher  products  of  its  genius. 

The  expression  of  imagination  through  complication 
is,  precisely,  the  field  of  invention.  But  we  ought  to 
observe  at  once  that,  in  the  life  of  the  mind,  invention 
is  not  the  highest  form  of  activity,  is  never  quite  the 
full  and  free  risk  of  destiny  which  stands  face  to  face 
with  reality  in  adventure.  The  inventive  imagination 
builds  on  the  basis  of  the  elements  of  novelty,  which 
have  their  origin  in  the  instinctive  and  imitative  life, 
and  the  process  of  complication  is  quite  simply  de- 
scribed as  the  bringing  together  of  the  solid  elements 
of  life  about  their  characters  of  variation.  As  the 
characters  of  variation  are  still  fluid  and  not  quite 
hardened  to  full  formfulness,  the  groupings  which  rest 
upon  them  are  unstable,  and  the  life  which  they  em- 
body is  precarious  and  uncertain.  This  fact  is  the  ex- 
planation of  two  important  phases  of  human  life  just 
at  the  present  time;  the  inventive  imagination  has  left 
on  our  hands  a  world  of  objective  instruments  not  yet 
appropriated  to  the  life-values  they  were  intended  to 
embody;  and  it  leaves  the  moral  conviction  of  man- 
kind groping  in  uncertainty  and  wavering  doubt  as  to 
the  objective  end  in  which  a  life  of  values  can  be  made 
consistent    with   and   confluent    in   an   embodiment   of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  193 

permanent  form. 

The  complication  motive  leads  in  science  to  the 
attempted  approach  to  the  real  through  classification. 
Science  builds  on  a  basis  of  the  variants  from  uni- 
formity  the  concpetion  of  a  quantitative  and  aggrega- 
tive conformity  to  an  abstract  and  empty  type.  This 
type  is,  for  the  scientist,  deliberately  empty,  and  its 
use  is  conditioned  upon  the  conscious  recognition 
that  it  is  an  unreal  makeshift.  Only  the  variants  are 
real  for  science,  and  their  classes  are  mere  products 
of  the  "scientific  imagination,"  trumped  up  simply  as 
a  symbol  to  represent  the  multiplicity  of  the  variants. 
But  the  criticism  of  this  sort  of  thing  is  logic,  and, 
particularly  as  it  appears  to  the  scientific  mind  that 
logic  is  itself  a  mere  manipulation  of  classes,  neither 
it  nor  psychology  could  qualify  as  aspects  of  the  life 
of  mind.  We  therefore  drop  that  aspect  of  the  matter 
here  with  the  remark  that  for  science  life  is  a  matter 
of  shifting  empty  species  in  ever  new  ways  and 
attempting  to  shake  out  of  them  the  concrete  forms 
which  make  up  life's  substance,  and  the  practical  life 
which  boasts  a  "scientific"  foundation  is  one  vast  dis- 
play of  sham  and  humbug  and  buncombe. 

It  is  thus  that  imagination  as  invention  is  charac- 
teristic of  an  individualistic  and  materialistic  age.  It 
is  not  an  accident  that  the  individualistic  age  of  busi- 
ness has  been  rich  in  inventions  of  an  instrumental 
sort.  It  is  also  not  an  accident  that  the  same  period 
has  no  new  art-forms,  no  new  realizations  of  the  moral 
significance  of  living,  has  forged  out  of  the  heat  of 


194  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

religious  faith  no  new  models  of  the  life  of  the  spirit, 
no  new  visions  of  the  color-form  of  the  End.  It  is 
therefore  necessary  to  find  illustrations  of  this  form 
of  imagination  among  the  sordid,  uncouth  smudginess 
of  such  life-relations  as  are  conditioned  upon  machin- 
ery. It  is  here,  in  machinery,  that  complication  is  at 
its  best,  and  the  perversion  of  imagination  at  its  worst. 
For  our  purposes  any  highly  complicated  machine  will 
serve,  and  the  printing  press  will  do  as  well  as  any. 
What  we  are  interested  in,  of  course,  is  the  processes 
of  mind-life  which  created  the  printing  press  as  their 
embodiment,  and  the  effects  which  it  and  its  use  have 
by  way  of  reaction  upon  the  mind  life  of  the  user 
and  the  inventor.  The  printing  press  grew  out  of  the 
repetitive  necessity  of  the  activities  made  necessary 
in  human  relations  by  the  demand  for  communication. 
Since  these  processes  are  by  nature  incomplete,  and 
cannot  be  completed — if  they  were  completed  they 
would  be  some  form  of  art— they  tend  to  repeat  them- 
selves infinitely  and  indefinitely;  and  in  order  to 
relieve  the  monotony  to  mind  of  the  process  as  for- 
ever repeated,  the  repetition  of  the  process  becomes 
precipitated  in  a  part  of  the  machine.  To  the  press 
is  added  therefore  indefinitely  part  after  part,  the 
multiplication  of  parts  making  necessary  the  modifi- 
cation of  them  only  to  the  extent  that  they  be  pre- 
vented from  coming  in  each  other's  way,  and  this 
merely  negative  restriction  as  to  form  of  parts  results 
in  the  shambling,  sprawling  grotesqueness  of  the 
whole.     The  use  of  the  imagination  in  its  production 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  195 

is  not  free,  but  is  bound  by  the  necessity  of  throwing 
together  a  number  of  processes — each  of  which  taken 
by  itself  a  possible  element  of  grace — with  no  more 
real  possibility  of  order  than  that  dictated  by  speed. 
The  press  is  not  therefore,  and  never  can  be,  a  whole, 
for  it  is  tied  by  its  purpose  and  function  upon  the 
rock  of  process  repetition.  The  speed  involved  is 
consequently  the  endless  time-measure  of  a  rate,  the 
attempted  synthesis  into  wholeness  of  the  mere  splatter 
of  parts,  and  it  does  not  ever  approach  the  wholeness 
which  is  always  just  beyond  its  Tantalus  reach — the 
whole-grace  of  motion.  The  wholeness  of  grace  in 
motion  comes  nearest  perhaps  being  realized  in  the 
pure  continuity  of  the  outreaching,  striving  desire  of 
the  locomotive  when  you  do  not  see  its  wheels  and 
piston  arms  as  the  specific  moments  of  the  continuity; 
and  would  be  more  fully  realized  in  the  automobile 
if  its  breath-moments  were  not  so  crudely  covered  up 
with  the  sham  of  abstract  extensity  of  sheet  iron  and 
paint.  The  automobile  hides  too  much,  is  too  de- 
ceptive and  untrue  to  be  beautiful  in  grace,  either  of 
form  or  motion.  For  behind  its  pretense  is  the  naked, 
ambling  sprawl  of  the  reel  of  the  modern  harvester, 
or  the  rickety  falling-to-pieces  of  the  winding  blades 
of  the  old-fashioned  weaver. 

The  attempt  of  the  inventive  imagination  to  over- 
come the  jerk  of  repetitive  multiplicity  which  results 
in  the  deceptiveness  of  the  printing  press  or  the  auto- 
mobile, the  guards  and  fenders  of  which  give  them 
both  dead  away  in  spite  of  the  pretense  of  protect  ion 


196  THE  LIFE  OF  MIXI) 

to  life  which  we  falsely  construct  for  them,  is  per- 
haps best  illustrated  in  the  aeroplane.  But  in  this 
case  a  slight  element  of  deception  also  enters — a  de- 
ception which,  however,  is  not  false,  since  it  does  not 
attempt  so  much  to  hide  the  truth  as  to  draw  atten- 
tion from  the  bareness  of  mere  truth.  But  the  evasion 
of  the  truth,  when  the  truth  is  dirty  or  misshapen,  is 
just  the  impulse  toward  the  end  which  characterizes 
creativeness,  and  thus  itself  becomes  the  prior  con- 
dition of  there  being  a  truth  at  all.  It  is  then  the 
fact  that  the  aeroplane  aspires  to  come  to  end  in  the 
perfect  grace  of  motion,  even  though  its  attempt  is 
mediated  by  the  obscurity  of  distance,  and  allures 
away  from  the  pettiness  by  which  each  degree-height 
is  attained,  by  covering  its  engines  and  wheels  and 
stays  by  the  misty  spread  of  its  formless  wings, — it 
is  because  the  ship  rises  above  the  recognition  of  its 
own  parts  that  it  arrives  at  the  throne  of  grace  in  the 
heaven  of  beauty.  B.ut  both  the  locomotive  and  the 
aeroplane  attain  the  fixity  of  grace  congealed  in  motion 
through  the  obscurity  with  which  distance  covers  their 
invented  multiplicity  with  the  mantle  of  wholeness, 
just  as  the  painter  hides  the  detail  of  a  landscape 
under  the  formlessness  of  pure  color  in  a  perfected 
form. 

But  the  technique  which  shall  impose  wholeness 
upon  the  complex  instruments  of  modern  practical 
activity  has  not  yet  been  completed — indeed  has 
hardly  yet  begun  to  be  recognizable.  This  means  that 
the    imagination    which    works    through    complication 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  197 

has  not  yet  found  its  balance  with  the  artistic  impulse, 
has  not  yet  found  the  secret  of  unity  of  use  with 
value  as  the  harmony  of  means  with  end  that  imagina- 
tion as  instinct  and  imitation  has  effected  in  the  art 
forms  of  the  objects  of  utility  of  a  previous  age.  The 
simple  water-pot  or  vase  or  loom  which  represents  the 
complete  harmony  of  use  and  end  in  a  life  adequate 
to  the  individual  human  being  has  as  yet  no  counter- 
part in  the  complicated  instruments  of  life  as  em- 
bodied in  human  corporate  wholes.  The  printing  press 
or  locomotive  represents  the  life-motives  of  no  man; 
its  organization  represents  the  successive  and  piece- 
meal addition  of  the  fragmentary  motives  of  a  social 
body  not  yet  reduced  to  wholeness  in  fact.  Such  a 
structure  lacks  therefore  the  unity  that  comes  from 
a  purpose  seen  and  felt  in  its  fulness  in  advance  of  its 
objective  expression;  it  represents  the  disunity  of  a 
life  not  yet  made  concentric  with  its  end  through 
imaginative  prevision — a  life  whose  unity  is  not  made 
complete  in  imagination.  Can  the  imagination  which 
complicates  ever  attain  a  life  that  is  whole?  It  is  the 
condition  of  harmony  and  peace  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

(IV)     IMAGINATION  AS  SPECULATION,  OR  ADVENTURE. 

We  have  seen  in  the  previous  paragraph  that  the 
endless  piling  together  of  fragmentary  parts  by  com- 
plication never  produces  anything  that  is  obviously 
and  compellingly  whole.  While  there  does  appear 
to  be  a  certain  vague  wholeness  of  feeling  represented 
in  a  complicated  machine,  yet  the  feeling  can  be 
traced  to  other  motives  than  that  which  represents 
the  truth  and  integrity  of  a  whole  object  of  experi- 
ence. There  is  a  thrill  of  vastness  that  comes  from 
watching  the  monstrous  power  of  the  engine  as  it 
heaves  its  ponderous  weight  up  a  stiff  grade,  but  it  is 
not  anticipatable.  You  can't  feel  it  fully  in  the 
absence  of  the  actual  engine,  so  it  will  always  bear 
the  marks  of  its  unfinishedness  and  can  never  appear 
as  the  ended  whole  of  a  completed  experience.  The 
engine  is  consequently  not  an  object  of  art,  it  is  not 
a  balanced  end  of  action  and,  therefore,  is  not  right; 
it  is  not  as  a  whole  consistent  with  the  effort  and 
meaning  of  its  parts,  is  not,  that  is,  true;  it  is  not 
fully  real  on  any  count.  And  the  mind-life  that 
corresponds  to  the  machine  impulse  as  it  culminates 
in  partiality  and  monstrosity  is  itself  fragmentary  and 
monstrous.  In  so  far  as  such  a  life  is  conscious  of  its 
own  imperfection  it  attempts  to  deny  itself  through 
denunciation  of  its  structure,  it   gives  itself  away  in 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  199 

hopeless  charity.  And  since  it  mistakes  its  end  as 
the  repetitious  increase  of  its  substance,  it  is  endless 
with  desire  and  the  aching  hunger  for  more  and  more 
and  more.  It  is  never  complete,  is  never  filled;  a 
life  which  wastes  itself  lest  it  be  wasted;  it  hopes  in 
vain  for  hope  and  faith,  it  cannot  believe.  It  pre- 
sumes to  feel  its  own  real  urge  in  the  blind  process 
of  production;  so  bent  on  the  mere  passage  toward  the 
goal,  it  will  not  stay  or  pause  to  finish  any  object  in 
which  it  might  find  rest. 

Such  a  mind-life,  lacking,  as  it  does,  the  very  im- 
pulse to  finish  an  object  in  which  it  could  find  repose, 
becomes  centered  in  its  own  inner  little  purpose  and 
thus  isolates  itself  from  the  great  human  world  where 
life  and  art  and  knowledge  are  cultivated.  It  can  thus 
be  called  a  mind-life  at  all  only  because  of  the  acci- 
dental fact  that  on  occasion  it  becomes  conscious  of 
its  isolation  from  the  world  of  persons  and  things. 

Let  us  see  how  this  consciousness  of  isolation  saves 
the  mind-life  of  the  machine  world  from  complete 
destruction. 

So  long  as  the  mechanical  mind-life  remains  im- 
mersed within  the  blind  urge  to  produce  there  is  no 
hope  for  it  until  its  production  of  fragments  clogs  its 
own  process.  The  stream  which  runs  down  hill  is 
active  and  free  and  unperturbed.  It  goes  from  one 
obstacle  to  another,  lightly  bounds  over  difficulties, 
and  recks  not  as  to  whither  it  may  be  headed.  But 
when  the  heap  of  stones  and  debris  which  it  itself  has 
loosed   from   the  hillside  mounts   up   before   it,   it   is 


200  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

compelled  to  pause  and  turn  upon  itself  and  become 
deep  and  tread  upon  its  own  body  until  it  lifts  itself 
where  it  can  see  over  the  obstruction  its  remaining 
course  below.  But  as  its  course  lies  empty  of  itself 
before  it,  its  winding,  rugged  endlessness  begins  to 
appear  hollow  as  the  winds  that  head  nowhere.  It 
therefore  seeks  the  lowest  place  where  it  can  collect, 
and,  as  its  vigor  went  out  of  it  from  its  bounding  from 
rock  to  rock,  it  here  lies  down  in  stagnant  death.  The 
mind-life  of  the  age  of  machines  is  like  the  stream.  It 
is  full  of  power  as  it  runs  down  hill.  When  it  rises 
to  the  heights  where  it  can  see,  its  clouded  vision  can 
choose  only  a  place  to  lie  down.  Its  urge  downward 
prevents  its  following  the  eagle  over  the  mountain 
which  rises  before  it;  in  fact,  the  eagle  it  sees  is  the 
shadow  of  the  real  as  it  gropes  for  rest  among  the 
dark  places  of  the  mud  below.  How  can  it  be  made 
to  lift  its  eyes  to  the  hills?  How  shall  it  be  made 
to  look  away  from  the  shadow  which  broods  darkly 
over  the  low  places,  toward  the  reality  which  rises, 
majestic  before  the  background  of  real  sunlight? 

We  have  said  that  the  machine  mind  must  be  made 
aware  of  its  own  emptiness  and  isolation.  The  inven- 
tive or  repetitive  mind  complicates  its  own  world  until 
it  cannot  find  its  way  about  in  it.  If  it  can  once  be 
made  to  comprehend  the  end  for  which  its  complica- 
tive activity  strives,  then  the  confusion  of  its  own 
products  which  hedge  it  about  will  give  way  before  a 
suggestion  of  order,  and  repetitive  process  will  give 
way  before  the  organizing  law  of  the  world  reduced 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  201 

to  order  and  peace.  But  such  a  result  is  beyond  the 
power  of  the  inventive  mind  which  eternally  pries  out 
fragments  which  submit  to  no  order.  Order  in  a 
world  of  instruments  begins  with  the  operation  of  the 
speculative  imagination.  It  is  this  aspect  of  the 
imagination  which,  we  must  see,  is  the  real  creator 
of  new  reality,  which  brings  new  things  and  forces 
into  the  world  which  the  mere  inventive  imagination 
cannot  even  understand. 

Let  us  try  to  show  the  activity  of  the  speculative 
imagination  in  some  of  its  simplest  forms.  This  is 
best  done  perhaps  by  contrasting  its  working  with  that 
of  the  inventive  imagination.  The  latter  has  to  await 
a  suggestion  from  the  facts  with  which  it  is  dealing. 
Thus  the  steamboat  was  inevitable  the  moment  a 
steam  engine  was  made  that  would  run  on  a  moving 
base,  one  all  of  whose  parts  had  fast  attachment  to 
the  same  base  so  that  they  would  maintain  their  rela- 
tions to  one  another.  Then  it  was  a  simple  matter  to 
put  the  engine  on  a  boat,  and  the  nature  of  the  engine, 
that  is,  the  form  of  its  motion,  determined  the  form 
of  the  instrument  through  which  its  power  was  applied 
to  the  water.  That  is,  the  organization  of  the  engine 
and  the  consequent  form  of  its  motion  determined 
that  the  propeller  should  be  some  form  of  rotating 
structure,  some  modification  of  the  simple  wheel,  and 
it  remains  just  that  and  will  remain  that  until  some 
power  unit  operates  through  some  other  form  of 
motion.  All  the  possibilities  of  boats  and  engines  are 
given  in  the  simple  instances  of  the  two  facts,  just 


202.  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

as  the  fact  that  two  sides  are  together  greater  than 
the  third  is  given  the  moment  you  have  a  triangle. 
So  invention  produces  indefinitely,  but  it  gives  us 
nothing  new.  It  combines  the  old  in  endless  ways, 
but  mere  endlessness  is  the  limit  beyond  which  it 
cannot  go.  Invention  is  confused  with  speculation 
at  the  point  where  the  given  suggestions  are  subtle 
and  are  not  readily  traceable  to  their  basis  in  the 
given  facts;  but  invention  and  the  machine  process 
operate  with  what  is  given  none  the  less. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

(v)     IMAGINATION  AS   CREATIVE. 

Shall  we  say,  then,  that  speculation,  since  we  have 
contrasted  it  with  invention,  operates  with  what  is  not 
given?     Exactly  so.     Its   real   nature   and   source   is 
to  be  found  in  exactly  what  mechanism  neglects.   From 
the  point  of  view  of  mechanism  and  invention,  noth- 
ing need  be  present  in  the  steamboat  situation  except 
the  facts  of  the  engine  and  the  boat,  with  the  corollary 
physical  properties  and  processes  which   they  imply. 
I  mean,  given  a  boat  and  a  steam  engine,  a  steamboat 
is  just  inevitable  in  those  facts  alone  and  will  some 
day  fall  out  of  the  situation  by  accident,  and  there 
need  not  be  a  "mind"  present  to  record  the  fact.    The 
situation  of  fact  produces  the  steamboat,  it  just  leads 
forth  what  is  there,  and  mind  need  not  have  anything 
to  do  with  it  in  any  peculiar  way.     But  if  you  con- 
sider the  case  where  the  painter  touches  a  drab  land- 
scape into  beauty  with  a  few  smears  of  color,  you  will 
have  to  recognize  that  you  are  dealing  with  an  entirely 
different  matter.     The  landscape  would  wait  through 
eternity  for  just  that  beauty,  although  it  might  in  the 
eternity  of  its  mere  existence  have  produced  similar 
colors  in  infinite  number  and  variety.     The  facts  of 
the  landscape  did  not  lead  inevitably  to  the  painter, 
even  though  you  may  argue  that  its  beauty  stimulated 
the  painter  to  paint  it.     If  that  had  been  all  that  was 


204  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

necessary,  then  anybody  with  possession  of  the  tech- 
nique could  have  produced  the  painting,  and  it  would 
have  been  produced  a  million  times  before  our  painter 
ever  saw  it.  The  real  painter  adds,  therefore,  what 
was  not  there,  even  in  the  painter;  the  element  that 
makes  the  picture  that  picture  did  not  come  from 
anywhere,  was  not  in  existence  until  the  painter  touched 
the  canvas;  whereupon  the  picture  as  a  thing  of  beauty 
sprang  into  existence  as  the  creation  of  a  reality  which 
was  not  there  before.  It  would  be  nonsense  to  argue 
that  any  other  equally  competent  artist  might  have 
produced  the  picture,  for  its  reality  depends  upon  its 
being  the  picture  that  it  is,  painted  in  the  way  that 
it  was,  out  of  elements  that  were  not.  It  is  a  case 
where  the  beautiful  reality  as  order  bears  the  value 
reality  in  itself,  and  it  comes  into  being  as  color  in 
conception  identifies  with  color  in  fact.  This  identifi- 
cation is  the  mystery  of  the  creative  mind. 

What  is  true  here  is  true  throughout  the  world  of 
value  forms,  and  it  is  both  true  and  obvious  in  the 
higher  forms  of  art.  It  is  not  so  obvious,  though 
equally  true,  in  many  of  the  common  activities  of 
life,  although  all  life  activities  have  in  them  the  char- 
caters  and  qualities  of  art.  It  is  the  fact  that  the 
art  which  is  resident  in  many  'iow;'  forms  of  activity 
is  not  only  not  obvious  but  not  even  discernible  by 
the  actor  that  makes  so  many  of  human  activities 
distasteful.  But  it,  nevertheless,  can  be  demonstrated 
that  the  meaning  of  all  activity  (one  would  like  to 
say  motion  also)  is  expressable  finally  only  in  the  art 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND.  205 

form,  and  we  wish  here  to  examine  a  "low"  type  of 
activity  to  carry  our  point  that  the  ultimate  is  the 
creature  of  speculation. 

I  once  enjoyed  the  high  privilege  of  living  on  an 
unimproved  street  where  I  was  spared  a  good  many 
of  the  distractions  of  the  "modern  conveniences."  But 
civilization  overtook  me;  men  of  various  shades  of 
color  and  morality  came  to  dig  away  the  road  that 
honest  use  had  leveled  out  between  the  rows  of  maple 
trees.  They  began  by  setting  to  work  a  very  old 
colored  man  at  digging  a  deep  ditch  along  the  side 
of  the  road  for  the  curbstone.  The  man  was  old, 
indefinitely  old,  so  old  that  he  no  longer  knew  that 
time  had  blown  many  a  rosy  purpose  out  of  his  head 
and  had  relieved  him  of  the  distracting  futilities  of 
youth.  He  had  thus  been  deprived  of  pride  and  ambi- 
tion and  want,  and  there  was  left  to  him  only  the 
world  in  which  the  moment  was  to  be  employed  in 
the  enjoyment  of  its  present  meaning.  At  the  time 
when  I  saw  him,  this  meaning  began  when  he  stood 
the  spade  upon  its  blade  and  placed  his  left  foot  upon 
its  hilt.  He  paused  in  that  attitude  just  long  enough 
to  feel  the  rhythm  of  his  balance  upon  the  movement 
which  was  to  follow.  Then  he  pushed  the  spade  in; 
another  pause  to  feel  the  cadence  of  movement  from 
the  first  attitude  to  this;  he  lifted  the  spade  and  dis- 
charged the  dirt  upon  the  bank,  paused  again  to  feel 
the  harmony  of  the  various  attitudes  together,  and 
repeated  the  process.  I  allowed  the  demon  to  con- 
vince me  that  the  grace  of  movement  was  in  mv  own 


206  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

mind  and  that  from  the  old  man's  view  all  was  harsh 
and  bitter  in  this  world  of  work.  So  I  went  out  to 
talk  with  him.  He  did  not  stop  or  vary  his  rhythmic 
movements  while  I  asked  him  questions,  although  he 
was  glad  for  the  opportunity  to  talk  which  he  expressed 
through  a  smile  that  entered  into  and  expanded  the 
harmony  of  his  movements.  Not  only  so,  but  his 
mellow  old  voice  infused  a  play  of  colors  through  the 
symphony  of  his  movements,  giving  to  the  whole  form 
an  exquisiteness  of  beauty  that  I  have  never  seen 
reproduced.  His  wife,  with  whom  he  lived  alone 
now,  his  children  all  having  grown  up,  was  "oF  an' 
po'ly  now,  thank  yo'  all,"  but  ude  good  Lawd"  had 
enabled  him  to  provide  for  her  a  warm  fire  and  a  com- 
fortable chair  and  amos'  all  she  wants."  He  loved 
to  work  and  ''knowed  dat  some  good  man  'ud  give 
him  ah  inside  job  fo'  de  wintah"  when  the  winter  came. 
'Why  don't  you  stop  and  rest  a  moment,  Uncle?"  I 
ventured.  "Ah  doesn't  need  to  stop;  Ah  rest  as  Ah 
wo'k,"  and  then  he  explained  to  me  that  his  move- 
ments were  so  timed  and  varied  that  his  strength 
was  recovered  as  it  was  portioned  out  to  the  various 
moves,  so  that  he  was  no  more  tired  at  the  end  of  the 
day  than  at  the  beginning. 

Thus  did  the  old  man  by  dint  of  pure  speculative 
imagination  create  for  his  digging  the  pure  art-form, 
he  created  it  out  of  what  was  not  in  the  combination 
of  circumstance  which  was  presented  to  him.  From 
the  unimpeded  flow  of  his  meager  ideas  and  the  meas- 
ure  of   his   own   physical   movements   he  created    the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  207 

finish  and  fulfillment  of  his  life  with  every  clod  thrown 
out;  he  looked  with  the  eye  of  feeling  not  upon  his 
work,  but  his  working,  and  in  each  instance  and  at 
every  instant  it  pronounced  itself  good.  So  that  in- 
stead of  the  beauty  of  the  situation  being  merely  in 
my  mind,  it  was  there  as  solidly  objective  as  the  rocky 
cliff  which  none  of  my  wits  could  enable  me  to  scale. 
The  old  man  digging  his  ditch  took  his  place  with 
the  masterpieces  of  human  genius;  and  what  we  must 
see  is  that  it  was  the  old  man  himself  who  made  the 
picture;  and  it  was  granted  me  the  momentary 
glimpse  of  the  music  of  his  life.  His  speculative 
genius  had  found  order  where  there  was  none;^  had 
made  rhythm  and  symmetry  where  symmetry  and 
rhythm  there  were  none. 

Just  how,  psychologically,  the  speculative  imagina- 
tion works  is  not  very  clear.  And  the  awkward  fact 
that  we  have  to  face  is  that  the  psychologists  have  not 
yet  discovered  that  there  exists  such  a  thing.  Per- 
haps the  reason  is  that  the  speculative  imagination  is 
a  speculative  fact,  and  is  not  discoverable  to  the 
apparatus  and  clap-trap  which  has  allowed  the  psy- 
chologist to  become  convinced  that  he  can  think  with 
his  hands.  It  will  be  a  happy  day  for  truth  when  the 
psychologist  ceases  to  be  a  carpenter  and  cobbler  of 
the  soul  and  the  huckster  who  deals  with  mind  and 
ideas  as  the  hawker  deals  with  cabbages  on  the  street. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  these  commercial  artists 
the  description  of  mind  in  terms  of  its  appropriate 
objects,  the  objects  in  and  through  which  it  comes  to 


208  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

adequate  and  full  self-expression,  is  not  consistent 
with  "scientific  method" — a  method  which,  by  the 
way,  they  have  never  given  any  formal  defmiteness 
in  expression,  which  seems  to  imply  that  they  have 
never  given  their  sacred  method  very  much  considera- 
tion themselves.  But  while  they  themselves  say  that 
mind  can  be  approached  only  through  its  outward 
expression,  they  can  have  no  case  for  objection  against 
anyone  who  cares  to  describe  mind  in  terms  of  some 
of  its  most  interesting  objective  expressions.  It  is 
at  least  not  obvious  that  mind  has  its  only  expression 
in  the  organism,  as  many  of  them  assume;  and  if  we 
will  leave  the  ubehaviorists,'  to  their  implicit  Freu- 
dianism,  the  only  "scientific1'  character  left  to  mind 
will  be  a  quiver,  or  better  a  tendency  to  quiver,  in 
a  muscle  or  gland  or  some  other  cadaverous  nonsense. 
Then  as  our  guess  we  shall  follow  the  suggestion 
hinted  at  above.  The  experts  have  done  what  they 
could,  and,  it  seems,  all  they  can,  in  the  way  of  reduc- 
ing mind  and  life  to  the  form  and  structure.  $1  the 
organism.  They  have  obeyed  the  ordinary  injunction 
of  science  to  the  effect  that  you  should  reduce  your 
subject  matter  to  the  simplest  possible  terms,  and 
they  have  their  reward.  Let  us  see  whether  some- 
thing may  not  come  from  this  aspect  of  mind  when,  if 
not  sublimated  to  a  higher  form,  since  in  its  highest 
form  already,  it  is  at  least  interpreted  through  the 
objects  whose  aesthetic  quality  is  adequate  to  its  full 
expression.  We  may  take  our  clue  from  the  blunder 
of    the   physiosophists,   who   have   misread   the   very 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  209 

fundamental  law  that  all  mind  is  expressed  through 
the  organism  so  as  to  make  it  state  that  all  mind  has 
its  expression  in  the  organism,  and  this  they  take  to 
mean  that  the  expression  of  mind  is  limited  to  the 
possibilities  of  movement  in  the  organism.  Add  to 
the  former  what  truth  there  is  in  the  latter  statement, 
and  you  have  it  that  mind  expresses  itself  through 
the  organism  in  the  objects  of  life  and  art,  and  this 
we  accept  as  the  principle  of  explanation  for  the  spec- 
ulative imagination.  But  this  is  as  far  as  possible 
from  explanation  in  terms  of  reflexes  and  reactions, 
indeed  it  is  a  denial  that  the  explanation  of  any  fact 
of  mind  is  a  question  of  physiology  at  all,  or  to  which 
physiological  considerations  can  contribute  anything 
fundamental.  It  insists,  however,  that  the  explana- 
tion of  mind  must  be  effected  through  a  consideration 
of  the  qualities  of  the  objects  of  immediate  experi- 
ence, not  essentially  in  their  sensory  aspects  but  pri- 
marily in  their  imaginal  characteristics.  We  must 
insist,  therefore,  that  mind  is  a  logical  entity,  has  its 
primary  characters  expressible  only  in  terms  of  the 
relations  among  objects,  such  relations  in  fact  as  rep- 
resent the  value  aspects  of  experience  as  experience 
institutionalizes  itself  in  the  speculative  and  practical 
instruments  of  life.  The  explanation  of  mind  is  there- 
fore in  the  last  analysis  a  matter  of  logic. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

(VI)     MIND-CREATION  AS  LOGIC — NOT  PHYSIOLOGY. 

Those  who  undertake  to  explain  mind  in  terms  of 
the  organism  can  always  appeal  to  quite  inescapable 
facts.  The  only  question  that  arises  is  as  to  whether 
the  facts  furnish  a  complete  explanation  of  mind,  and 
whether  they  do  not  merely  illustrate  to  the  mind  of 
the  person  giving  the  explanation  the  particular  types 
of  imagery  he  happens  to  think  in.  The  first  part 
of  the  question  is  really  not  very  important,  since  if 
we  take  it  for  granted  that  the  facts  of  the  organism 
do  explain  the  mind,  then  we  have  to  assert  that  cer- 
tain other  circumstances  which  seem  to  be  facts  really 
are  not  facts  at  all.  Then  we  have  a  lot  of  difficulties 
about  the  nature  of  the  difference  between  two  kinds 
of  facts,  and  it  is  very  easy  in  arguing  this  question 
to  overlook  the  question  we  start  out  to  answer.  To 
those  people,  therefore,  who  say  that  mind  is  just 
nothing  but  the  performance  of  certain  very  delicate 
types  of  movements  by  certain  very  delicate  struc- 
tures, there  is  nothing  to  say  more  than  to  call  their 
attention  to  the  fact  that  nearly  every  such  explana- 
tion follows  the  circle  between  assuming  that  we  are 
justified  in  deducing  activities  which  are  not  known 
from  structures  which  are,  or  that  we  may  be  sure  of 
the  existence  of  delicate  structures  because  we  know 
of  very  delicate  activities.     And  there  are  cases  where 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  211 

the  physiologists  of  mind  deduce  both  the  delicate 
structures  and  movements  from  facts  whose  connec- 
tion with  the  strctures  and  activities  in  question  is 
quite  remote  and  either  itself  unknown  or  when  known 
is  recognized  as  ambiguous.  Such  a  statement  is  a 
rather  summary  disposal  of  a  good  many  attempts  to 
show  how  mind  works  and  what  it  is  by  the  simple 
process  of  taking  for  granted  whatever  you  need  to 
justify  your  conclusion,  and  it  seems  to  dispose  of 
most  of  the  physiological  and  physiosophical  discus- 
sion contained  in  many  of  the  books  on  psychology. 

There  is,  however,  no  getting  away  from  the  fact 
that  mind  is  always  known  through  activities  in  the 
organism.  What  we  insist  is,  that  because  this  is  true, 
it  does  not  warrant  us  in  saying  that  the  mind  and 
the  organism  are  the  same  thing  or  that  one  produces 
the  other,  as  seems  to  be  quite  generally  implied.  The 
fact  is,  we  are  here  dealing  with  a  question  where  our 
scientific  notions  of  cause  and  production  do  not  help  , 
us  much.  Most  people  who  have  never  studied  psy-  / 
chology  have  never  had  to  deal  with  the  illusion  that 
mind  and  body  are  the  same  thing,  so  we  can  leave 
the  question  to  the  expert  physiosophists. 

There  are  reasons  for  believing  that  those  who  in- 
terpret mental  facts  literally  in  organic  terms  do  so 
primarily  because  they  cannot  imagine  to  themselves 
mental  processes  except  by  illustrating  them  by  and 
in  organic  forms.  To  one  whose  temperament  is  pri- 
marily active  and  muscular  it  is  difficult  to  perceive 
the  real  content  of  an  image  without  illustrating  it  to 


212  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

himself  through  feels  in  ihc  organism  or  visual  Images 
of  parts  of  his  body.  Just  so.  an  abstract  idea  like 
justice  appears  in  the  mind  as  an  indefinite  and  vague 
picture  of  a  man  paying  a  grocer's  bill,  or  in  terms  of 
the  feelings  involved  in  putting  your  hand  into  your 
pocket  and  counting  out  money  in  exchange  for  some- 
thing. Or.  it  may  appear  as  the  visual  picture  or  the 
muscular  picture  of  the  goddess  holding  the  scale, 
where  the  emphasis  is  on  the  person  holding  the  scales, 
the  scale  itself  not  representing  justice  without  the 
muscular  feels.  It  is  probable  that  there  are  not  many 
ideas,  if  any,  which  do  not  take  some  such  organic 
form  as  they  are  known  to  the  mind;  but  this  no  more 
proves  the  identity  of  mind  and  organic  activity  than 
it  proves  the  identity  of  mind  and  ideas  with  other 
external  things;  in  fact,  there  is  a  sense,  as  it  seems, 
in  which  the  latter  can  be  proved.  If  my  idea  of  a 
book  is  not  the  book,  then  it  is  also  not  the  feelings 
of  a  book  in  my  hand  or  the  mental  picture  of  a  book 
in  my  mind  or  my  eye. 

It  seems  then  to  be  the  right  principle  to  illustrate 
mental  facts  through  the  use  of  objects,  but  there  is 
no  reason  for  emphasizing  those  objects  we  know  as 
the  organism  as  more  important  than  others.  One's 
ideas  do  not  resemble  organic  forms  in  fact,  but  it 
appears  so  only  after  one  has  been  taught  that  way 
by  the  study  of  psychology;  they  are  taken  rather  as 
somehow  resembling  the  objects  which  they  mean,  as 
is  clear  from  the  persistence  of  the  old  copy  theory. 
Then  if  ideas  and  objects  are  pretty  much  the  same 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  213 

things,  the  important  question  is,  what  sorts  of  objects 
illustrate  to  us  best  the  real  nature  of  our  ideas. 

We  must  recall  to  our  minds  once  more  that  we 
are  trying  to  explain  the  speculative  imagination,  for 
it  is  in  this  operation  of  our  minds  that  we  come 
closest  to  the  realities  of  things.  Its  distinction  from 
the  reason  we  will  make  later,  but  we  may  here  say 
that  the  distinctive  thing  about  the  speculative  imagi- 
nation is  that  it  is  the  power  through  which  we  know 
objects  as  unities,  whereas  in  the  reason  we  know 
unity  as  the  principle  of  objects.  Here  we  want  to 
know  what  sorts  of  objects  represent  to  us  best  the 
nature  of  our  ideas,  and  if  we  can  find  an  answer  to 
this  question  our  description  of  these  objects  will  be 
the  explanation  of  the  speculative  imagination  as  the 
highest  form  of  specific  activity  of  mind. 

The  sorts  of  objects  which  occur  to  mind  first  when 
their  relation  to  mind  is  in  question  is  that  sort  which 
we  may  classify  as  tools  or  instruments.  The  relation 
of  our  tools  to  our  life  seems  to  us  very  close  and 
direct,  especially  those  tools  upon  which  we  depend 
most  heavily  in  a  practical  way.  Thus,  the  carpenter's 
saw  or  plane  is  the  form  which  his  ideas  tend  to  take 
when  he  is  thinking  toward  a  house  which  he  is  to 
build,  just  as  it  perhaps  is  his  model  for  everything 
that  comes  to  his  mind  as  implying  its  having  been 
made.  In  the  case  of  the  carpenter,  then,  ideas  as 
representing  objects  as  unities  will  be  replicas  of  his 
tools  together  with  the  objects  which  his  tools  relate 
with  in  practical  life.     But  it  is  in  this  latter  fact  that. 


214  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

we  can  see  that  the  general  classes  of  things  as  tools 
do  not  represent  fully  the  meanings  of  our  ideas.  The 
idea  of  a  thing  as  a  tool  always  refers  us  beyond  the 
thing  itself,  on  to  something  which  in  a  way  completes 
the  tool  idea  but  which  itself,  nevertheless,  carries  the 
suspicion  of  being  a  tool  for  something  else.  Thus  the 
tool  idea  never  stops,  never  gives  us  the  complete  idea, 
but  always  an  idea  which  complains  of  its  own  incom- 
pleteness by  striving  to  reach  over  to  encompass  some- 
thing else.  It  is,  of  course,  true  that  the  idea  of  tool 
may  be  interpreted  in  a  great  many  senses — senses 
which  sometimes  exchange  themselves  while  you  are 
arguing.  But  its  essential  purpose  is  to  refer  to  some- 
thing that  means  something  else,  and  this  meaning 
something  else  is  all  that  it  as  tool  properly  means. 
The  idea  that  speculative  ideas  are  tools  merely  indi- 
cates that  we  are  living  in  a  world  that  takes  its  tools 
too  seriously,  the  sort  of  thing  that  sometimes  makes 
a  man  that  is  using  a  razor  in  shaving  unconsciously 
and  by  impulse  use  it  to  cut  his  own  throat.  A  prac- 
tical age  is  thus  inherently  sophistical  and  skeptical, 
and  it  is  not  the  less  vicious  and  destructive  because 
it  is  what  it  is  unconsciously.  There  may  be  moral 
obligations  involved  in  our  not  being  fully  conscious. 

Our  speculative  or  constructive  ideas  are  not  then 
properly  represented  to  us  as  tools,  even  if  we  try 
to  refine  the  conception  to  the  point  where  the  higher 
logical  and  artistic  forms  seem  to  us  to  exist  for  the 
purpose  of  pointing  onward  to  something  else. 

We  perhaps  ought  to  say,  while  so  near  the  point, 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  215 

that  the  organism,  by  itself  and  as  a  specific  biological 
fact,  and  it  is  essentially  that,  does  not  belong  in  any 
of  these  classes.  And,  while  the  point  is  a  little  harder 
to  carry,  we  shall  show  that  the  organism  in  no  natu- 
ral or  practical  sense  belongs  in  any  of  these  classes. 
In  fact,  if  this  were  the  place  to  do  it,  it  would  be 
interesting,  and  for  the  psychologist  instructive,  and 
it  would  at  the  same  time  be  relatively  easy,  to  show 
that  the  organism  from  a  biological  point  of  view  is 
not  a  tool  or  an  instrument  to  something  else,  but  in 
its  reality  rests  completed  in  its  own  perfection  as  a 
case  or  instance  of  the  universal;  thus  as  a  biological 
hypothesis  it  is  a  concept  and  an  organon  oj  logic  and 
not  a  scientific  object  at  all.  Then  the  attempt  to 
explain  our  ideas  as  always  rushing  onward  to  become 
something  other  than  what  they  are  is  wrong,  whether 
we  try,  as  we  must  on  the  one  assumption,  to  identify 
the  idea  with  the  process  which  distinguishes  it  from 
what  is  not  it,  or  to  identify  the  idea  with  the  thing 
which  is  so  distinguished  from  it. 

But  what  are  these  classes  of  the  speculative  imagi- 
nation which  do  not  compel  us  to  recognize  them  as 
the  tools  with  which  we  gain  other  and  supposedly 
real  ideas?  And  how  do  such  ideas  or  objects  lead  us 
into  the  very  presence  of  mind  itself  and  all  its  mys- 
teries? And  when  we  stand  before  mind,  how  do  we 
know  whether  it  is  ideas  we  have  or  objects,  and 
whether  we  have  these  things  or  are  "had"  by  them? 
Our  question  is,  in  brief,  what  is  the  reality  of  mind? 

We  may  indicate  at  once  the  types  of  objects  which 


216  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

we  shall  have  to  describe  as  what  are  often  by  meta- 
phor called  the  objects  of  truth  and  beauty,  and  it  is 
our  task  to  get  rid  of  the  metaphor  by  sober  descrip- 
tion of  fact.  Our  first  answer  to  these  questions  is 
disappointing,  for  it  is  the  old  abstraction  that  real 
objects  are  either  logical  or  aesthetic  objects.  It  is 
to  be  kept  in  mind  that  when  describing  objects  we 
are  delineating  the  forms  and  realities  of  ideas. 

Again,  then,  we  are  describing  objects  in  order  to 
understand  the  workings  of  mind,  and  here  it  is  the 
speculative  power  itself  that  we  desire  to  understand. 
Let  us  take,  as  the  first  instance  of  speculative  mind, 
the  logical  object.  And  we  can  come  at  it  most  simply 
and  directly  through  an  example  or  two.  In  any  case 
where  we  are  thinking  to  advantage  we  must  accept 
the  results  of  the  combinations  of  our  ideas  as  them- 
selves ideas  or  objects  whose  solidity  and  dependable- 
ness  are  just  as  safe  as  are  the  solidity  and  depend- 
ableness  of  the  table  which  we  know  is  in  the  next 
room  but  do  not  see.  That  is,  while  I  am  thinking 
about  books,  chairs,  etc.,  they  will  all  take  their  places 
about  the  table  just  as  really  when  I  do  not  see  the 
table  as  when  I  do  see  it.  The  table  as  it  stands  in 
the  next  room  as  the  dependable  basis  and  center  for 
other  objects  is  a  simple  instance  of  a  logical  object, 
•  and  by  this  we  mean  that  when  we  think  of  the  table 
as  the  center  of  a  group  of  experiences,  it  will  help 
us  to  organize  our  thought  to  the  form  and  degree 
where  it  has  meaning.  The  psychological  image  which 
is  recalled  has  nothing,  or  very  little,  to  do  with  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  217 

case  as  an  object,  i.  e.,  as  real.  Again,  in  a  practical 
way,  when  we  think  of  the  table  (when  we  do  not 
see  it,  when  it  stands  in  the  next  room)  we  can  take 
it  for  granted  that  if  we  go  into  the  next  room  with 
our  arms  piled  high  with  books  we  shall  be  able  to 
put  the  books  down  on  the  table.  That  is,  we  can 
take  it  for  granted  that  thetable  will  be  there  for  us 
to  put  books  on,  sit  by,  play  cards  on;  we  can  depend 
upon  it  and  plan  our  actions  accordingly.  If  I  could 
not  depend  on  the  table  I  should  not  go  into  the  room 
with  arms  piled  high  with  books,  and  when  I  do  go 
into  the  room  thus  laden  I  am  taking  it  for  granted 
that  the  table,  as  a  physical  object,  as  an  object  of 
perception,  is  there  to  to  correspond  more  or  less  per- 
fectly with  the  logical  object  table  which  is  in  my 
mind  before  I  enter  the  room.  But  in  the  experience 
of  table  there  is  no  hint  of  "sensations"  or  "reactions" 
nor  any  of  the  other  mythology  of  the  psychologists. 
As  another  example,  when  the  farmer  speaks  of  the 
price  of  wheat,  or  the  grocer  of  the  price  of  eggs,  they, 
as  well  as  those  to  whom  they  speak,  know  exactly 
what  is  meant.  And  yet  there  is  no  such  thing  in  the 
world  as  the  price  of  wheat  if  we  mean  by  "thing" 
something  which  we  can  touch,  taste,  smell,  etc.  The 
price  of  wheat  is  not  a  perceptible  object;  in  the  point 
of  view  of  the  psychologist,  in  which  perception  im- 
plies sensory  immediacy,  a  perceptible  object  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms;  the  price  of  wheat  is  a  logical  v' 
object,  an  expectancy,  an  assurance  in  advance  oi 
fact   of   the  orderly  stability  of  a  world.      Hut    as  a 


218  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

logical  object  it  is  just  as  important  as  the  actual 
bushel  of  wheat,  and  is  oftener  sold  and  traded  than 
the  latter  itself. 

Xow  not  all  logical  objects  refer  directly,  as  the 
foregoing  examples  do,  to  the  practical  objects  of  the 
daily  life.  Some  of  them,  even  very  many  of  them, 
seem  to  have  no  relation  to  practical  or  perceptible 
objects  at  all.  Many  of  the  ideas  of  the  speculative 
imagination  seem  to  refer  only  to  themselves,  or  to 
systems  which  groups  of  them  tend  to  create.  These 
are  the  most  rare  and  the  most  important  of  all  our 
ideas,  and  they  are  properly  classified  as  rational 
ideas.  As  ideas  of  the  reason,  the  logical  ideas  of  the 
speculative  imagination,  as  they  operate  within  the 
system  which  they  create  for  themselves,  are  the  crea- 
tive power  and  the  source  and  origin  as  well  as  the 
final  meaning  of  the  order  of  our  world.  We  shall 
describe  them  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

(VIl)     MIND-CREATION  AS  ART. 

But  there  is  another  class  of  the  speculative  ideas 
of  the  imagination  which  we  mentioned  above.  These 
are  the  speculative  ideas  that  fall  under  the  principle 
of  beauty  into  the  system  of  objects  of  art.  But  it. is 
not  the  system  merely  of  beautiful  perceptible  things, 
much  less  is  it  the  mass  of  our  feelings  of  and  for 
beautiful  things.  What  we  mean  here  is  that  beau- 
tiful things,  as  creatures  of  the  speculative  imagina- 
tion, are  not  limited  to  objects  of  sense  or  perceptible 
objects,  but  include  a  class  of  objects  whose  content 
is  nothing  but  acts  of  the  speculative  imagination 
itself.  This  capacity  of  imagination  to  comprehend 
itself  within  the  class  of  real  objects,  and  to  appre- 
hend the  qualities  of  its  own  acts  as  objects,  as  quali- 
ties themselves  constituting  objects  with  specific,  i.  e. 
universal,  characters,  is  precisely  what  we  mean  by 
mind,  is  what  distinguishes  mind  from  all  other  things. 
Here,  then,  is  the  point  where  the  speculative  imagi- 
nation apprehends  as  objects  the  qualities  of  its  own 
acts,  and  as  objects  in  the  full  sense  as  implying  uni- 
versal characters,  we  stand  in  the  august  presence  of 
Mind  itself.  This  is  the  system  of  speculative  ideas 
which  includes  religion,  morality,  and  art,  and  what- 
ever other  forms  of  creation  are  possible  to  mind. 
It  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  regard  (he  three  classes 


220  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

named  as  expressing  the  limits  of  the  types  of  ideas 
here  under  description;  in  fact,  it  appears  that  the 
world  of  political  conceptions  is,  in  the  mind  of  the 
moralist  or  Utopian,  another  and  a  still  higher  realm 
than  that  represented  by  art,  morality,  and  religion. 
It  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  the  visions  of  the 
prophet  and  the  dreams  of  the  seer  in  any  field  are 
not  speculative  conceptions  of  the  highest  degree  of 
reality. 

It  is,  to  return  to  our  subject,  somewhat  hard  to 
give  examples  of  speculative  ideas  of  beauty.  So  uni- 
versal is  the  belief  that  all  beauty  has  only  a  percep- 
tual or  sensory  basis,  so  persistent  the  prejudice  that 
ideas  are  not  real,  that,  even  were  it  possible  to  state 
clearly  in  words  the  essence  and  quality  of  speculative 
ideas,  they  would  be  mistakenly  apprehended  by 
almost  every  one  as  merely  nothing  more  than  their 
nearest  physical  or  perceptible  embodiment.  That 
there  ^re  bodies  spiritual  for  the  higher  forms  of  ideas 
only  those  who  comprehend  these  ideas  can  know; 
to  be  apprehended  by  the  unspiritual  or  mere  imita- 
tive imagination  these  ideas  must  be  materialized  into 
practical  forms.  The  practical  life  of  the  practical 
man  is  a  continuous  degradation  of  the  real  therefore. 
Consequently  it  is  difficult  to  bring  before  his  mind 
objects  which  have  their  mental  counterparts  in  forms 
of  consciousness  that  he  does  not  have;  and,  wrhat  is 
hopelessly  more,  so  far  as  such  objects  can  be  brought 
before  him.  it  turns  out  to  be  futile  and  altogether 
unprofitable. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MINI)  221 

When  we  approach  then  the  speculative  concepts 
of  art  we  must  presuppose  the  untrammeled  mind, 
and  instances  of  the  ultimate  aesthetic  then  do  not 
appear  as  rare  and  unusual  as  does  the  competent 
mind.  In  this  case  one  instance  is  as  good  as  many, 
and  where  none  are  simple  the  one  that  comes  readiest 
to  mind  is  best.  Take  the  case  where  the  contempla- 
tion of  beauty  brings  tears.  Then  in  the  absence  of 
the  object  through  which  the  beauty  appears  and  of 
the  objects  which  mediate  the  feeling,  depend  upon 
the  beauty  as  the  basis  and  starting  point  for  the 
construction  of  some  further  beautiful  form.  Then 
your  constructive  image  of  beauty  disengages  from 
its  normal  objective  embodiment,  and  becomes  the 
free  plan  and  pattern  of  any  object  whatever  that 
may  be  an  instance  of  beauty.  At  the  instant  when 
you  have  just  not  yet  selected  an  embodiment,  but 
hold  the  beauty  image  nude  and  the  embodiment  not 
yet  materialized,  you  have  the  constructive  or  crea- 
tive connection  of  the  pure  beauty-form  with  the  ulti- 
mate reality  as  a  world,  and  your  thought  as  imagi- 
nation is  free;  not  detached  from  the  material  basis 
ofjife^  but  unattached  to  any  of  life's  specific  aspects, 
a  floating  meaning  which  requires  no  embodiment  but 
its  own  substantiality.  This  is  the  simple  experience 
where  the  inner  content  of  mind  does  not  demand 
expression  in  any  particular  form,  such  as  that  as  in 
the  presence  of  your  Father  your  world  takes  form 
at  once  as  the  fulfillment  of  your  life,  and  where  the 
precipitation   of   the   floating  meaning  in   any   of   the 


Ill  THE  LIFE  OF  .MIND 

substantialities  which  we  know  divests  the  meaning  of 
precisely  its  meaning  or  universality.  Such  is  the 
system  of  moral  and  religious  realizations,  also;  they 
are  unattached,  circumambient  and  circumstantial, 
utter,  ineffable  meanings,  which  one  can  illustrate 
with  a  thousand  instances,  but  to  which  one  can  give 
no  more  adequate  or  other  description  than  we  have 
given  here.  They  are  not  substantial,  but  substan- 
tialities. 

As  we  have  said  before,  it  is  with  the  concepts  of 
the  speculative  imagination  that  we  make  contact 
with  the  realities  of  life.  It  remains  only  to  say  that 
these  concepts  are  the  realities  of  which  life  itself  is 
one.  How  life  as  one  of  the  realities  fits  into  the 
system  of  the  whole  is  the  problem  of  the  imagina- 
tion as  it  functions  in  the  reason — the  rational  imagi- 
nation. Here  we  shall  get  no  new  real-substance,  so 
long  as  we  consider  reality  as  presentable  at  one 
vision  or  as  one  image  to  the  mind.  However,  since 
the  form  of  the  plurality  of  reals  is  itself  an  ultimate 
idea  as  the  basis  of  the  speculative  concept  of  unity, 
the  form  of  plurality  become  unity  must  be  described 
as  the  rational  notion  of  order. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

(VIIl)     MIND-CREATION  AS  MORALITY. 

But  before  we  go  on  to  this  topic  it  is  necessary 
to  show  that  morality  and  religion  fail  of  the  com- 
plete reality  attained  by  art.  Neither  religion  nor 
morality  can  be  found  as  unengaged  with  the  speci- 
fied. But  they  both  make  the  exalted  effort,  both 
strive  for  the  freedom  from  the  clot  of  inwardness 
with  which  they  are  inextricably  confused.  Religion 
attempts  to  extricate  itself  by  luring  the  life  away 
from  the  interest  with  which  life  is  always  found 
bound  to  materiality,  and  thus  by  negative  suggestion 
lift  life  outward  toward  its  substantial  ground.  But 
the  allurement  which  it  holds  out  to  life  is  overtaken 
in  the  inwardness  of  feeling,  and  it  is  thus  caught 
in  the  very  deception  with  which  it  strives  to  beguile 
the  spirit  to  fulness  in  its  appropriate  embodiment. 
It  flaunts  before  the  spirit  the  attractive  bait  of  in- 
terest, and  bows  to  Mammon  when  it  aspires  to  God. 
It  is  thus  caught  in  contradiction  just  at  the  point 
at  which  it  presents  its  clairn  before  reason,  and, 
confronted  with  its  own  inconsistency  and  its  inevi- 
table urge  to  disunity,  shamefacedly  begs  the  mercy 
which  is  only  due  to  interrupted  feeling.  Confessing 
its  weakness  before  the  throne  of  reason,  its  unimagi- 
nativeness  can  claim  only  the  pity  which  weakness 
and  misery  can  ask  as  its  just  meed.     There  is  nothing 


224  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

left  that  it  can  do  but  assert  the  justlessness  of  the 
reason  itself,  and,  as  an  unwitting  skeptic,  to  build 
its  house  upon  the  sands  of  an  unreal  world.  Thus 
does  the  assertion  of  interest  lead  to  the  denial  of  any- 
thing as  finally  real,  the  adoption  of  the  everlasting 
nay  as  the  basis  of  its  claim  to  the  respect  which  life 
pays  to  the  real.  While  religion  is  half  conscious  of 
the  object,  the  attainment  of  which  would  realize  it  in 
its  perfection  of  form,  it  fritters  away  its  hope  of 
reaching  this  object  in  the  fruitless  attempt  to  con- 
vince itself  that  the  object  is  already  attained.  It 
thus  tries  by  methods  of  self-deception  to  identify  its 
unalterable  object  with  the  subjective  fragmentariness 
■  of  its  own  hope:  and  by  the  creation  of  hope  and 
trust  in  an  object  which  it  glories  that  it  cannot  see, 
and  by  its  elevation  of  this  object  to  the  station  of  an 
instrument  by  which  it  hopes  to  see,  it  falls  into  the 
emptiness  of  despair.  That  despair  is  its  portion 
here  below  the  history  of  religion  is  the  abundant 
proof.  Else  there  would  not  be  the  universal  neces- 
sity to  convince  itself  of  the  promise  of  its  prospect. 
Otherwise  there  would  be  no  reason  for  the  jealousy 
with  which  it  guards  its  empty  forms,  and  the  intol- 
erance with  which  it  belittles  the  positive  accomplish- 
ments which  life  makes  in  other  fields. 

The  case  of  morality  is  similar  but  more  difficult  to 
describe.  Religion  deceives  nobody:  a  proposition 
which  you  may  interpret  in  your  own  way.  For  the 
practical  man  whose  religion  is  useful,  it  means  that 
usefulness    is    beyond    deceit  fulness.      For    the    bigot 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  225 

whose  religion  is  true,  truth  lies  embalmed  in  rigid 
forms  and  is  beyond  meaning  or  deceit.  For  the 
voluptuary  whose  religion  is  ''assurance,"  truth  and 
utility  are  what  his  feeling  wills.  For  the  aesthete 
whose  religion  is  spastic  emotion,  truth  and  beauty 
and  righteousness  are  the  lurid  coloring  of  a  moment 
that  flashes  in  the  void.  But  morality  is  real,  and 
its  relation  to  the  reality  is  subtle  and  tenuous  and 
difficult  for  the  harsh  inartistic  hand  to  feel  out  in 
the  tissues  of  the  lfe  of  the  creative  imagination. 
Just  what  it  is  that  makes  morality  convincing  it  is 
perhaps  not  possible  altogether  to  say.  It  is  not  its 
promise  of  reward:  it  is  the  vacuity  of  religion  that 
makes  the  fatuity  of  rewards  seem  real.  It  is  not  its 
assurance  of  a  beckoning  finality  beyond  the  sphere 
of  life's  living.  It  is  not  the  inevitableness  with  which 
logic  forces  upon  us  an  inviolable  truth:  that  may 
leave  us  cold  and  unmoved,  just  as  religion  moves 
us  and  warms  us  to  objectless  action.  It  seems  then 
that  there  is  something  indigenous  in  the  life  that 
springs  from  the  ground  of  morality,  and  it  lacks  but 
one  feature  to  make  it  identifiable  with  the  reality  of 
beauty.  It  is  that  morality  cannot,  under  conditions 
that  we  know,  or  can  know,  be  sustained  to  per- 
petuity as  can  the  forms  of  beauty.  The  imagination 
which  in  art  reaches  and  holds  its  place  in  the  calm 
above  the  winds,  holds  its  position  there  by  inevitable 
right  and  without  strain  or  effort,  eternalizes  there 
in  perfect  form  without  support  from  any  source. 
The  same  imagination  in  morality   maintains  a  pre- 


226  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

carious  hold  only  fitfully  upon  the  calm  where  life 
flows  undismayed;  must  by  constant  grasp  of  effort 
keep  the  balance  of  form  and  symmetry  which  effort- 
less art  holds  by  inalienable  right  and  uninterrupted; 
it  is  this  mortal  strife  which  severs  the  life-cord  be- 
tween morality  and  mother  art  and  leaves  morality  to 
a  competitive  chance  with  the  forces  of  unreason  and 
errant  ugliness  in  a  world  only  partly  subdued  and 
reconciled  to  the  presence  of  life  in  its  midst. 

And  yet  the  good  is  real,  blood-sister  to  truth,  of 
the  common  mother  beauty. 

The  difficulty  in  the  case  of  morality  seems  to  come 
from  the  fact  that  morality  is  action.  And  action, 
under  the  conditions  imposed  upon  life  by  truth  and 
beauty,  only  imperfectly  comes  to  self-fulfillment. 
This  is  due  to  the  nature  of  action.  While  it  would 
be  out  of  place  here  to  go  into  a  complete  deduction 
of  the  nature  of  action,  its  essential  characters  may  be 
pointed  out.  The  life  that  consents  to  act  confesses 
thereby  its  want  of  wholeness.  Something  is  lacking 
to  it  which  it  strives  to  make  good  in  attainment.  But 
in  the  necessity  to  attain,  and  in  advance  of  final  defi- 
nition of  the  good  by  imaginative  construction,  life 
is  compelled  to  act  often  toward  only  a  dimly  outlined 
end.  This  means  that  life-action  is  often  blind,  must 
move  by  faith  grounded  in  imperfect  perception.  The 
consequence  is  that  it  quite  frequently  fails  hope- 
lessly in  the  most  urgent  cases,  and  invariably  misses 
the  point  of  its  aim  in  many  important  details.  In 
sober   fact  action  never  completely   accomplishes  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  227 

end  it  was  designed  to  realize,  and  thus  remains  for- 
ever unfinished.  Life  action  in  morality  is  thus  end- 
less;  the  eternal  striving  for  what  is  never  attained. 

It  must  not  be  presumed  that  action  attempts  to 
reach  an  end  outside  of  and  beyond  itself.  In  this  it 
is  again  imperfect,  since  as  compared  with  the  appre- 
ciation of  beauty  or  the  realization  of  truth,  its  end 
must  appear  to  come  as  the  fulfillment  of  itself.  But 
whereas  the  sense  for  beauty  and  truth  both  detach 
their  objects  from  the  process  by  which  they  reach 
them,  and  establish  the  circumstantiality  of  their 
objects  in  complete  independence,  action  remains  for- 
ever tethered  to  its  end  by  the  weight  of  its  ever 
going-on.  Its  imperfection  then  taints  its  end  with 
fragmentariness,  the  badge  of  unreality.  It  may  be 
said  of  truth  and  beauty  that  they  disappear  in  their 
ends;  their  ends  are  absorbed  in  their  realization. 
Thus  their  ends  as  realized  are  disengaged  from  their 
acts,  and  stand  alone  and  self-supported  in  the  life- 
whole  as  defined  realities.  In  action,  on  the  other 
hand,  ends  are  distorted  by  life's  very  process,  by  the 
fact  that  life-action  is  process,  and,  as  such,  visits  its 
own  weakness  upon  its  offspring.  It  is  of  the  nature 
of  action  never  to  be  finished,  and,  while  this  fact 
makes  action  the  arbiter  of  the  everlasting  future,  and 
as  such  the  preparer  of  the  way  for  truth  and  beauty, 
yet  it  leaves  action  not  with  where  to  lay  its  head  in 
the  scheme  of  the  life  of  mind. 

Morality,  then,  as  the  law  of  the  unfinished,  sets 
the  stage  for  ever  new   accomplishments.     While   we 


228  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

have  characterized  it  as  inferior  in  dignity  to  both 
truth  and  beauty,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  it  is  the 
highest  aspect  of  the  life  of  mind.  Applying  to  the 
relations  of  the  three  the  merely  logical  test,  which 
we,  of  course,  must  respect  so  long  as  we  care  for  the 
agreement  of  other  minds  with  ours,  morality  and  its 
action  must  be  considered  as  prior  to  both  truth  and 
beauty.  It  is  thus  the  logical  condition  of  the  two 
latter,  they  cannot  exist  until  nature  is  prepared  in 
advance  by  action.  It  is  thus  that  there  is  justifica- 
tion for  duty,  obligation,  and  the  other  fundamentals 
of  morality;  or  would  be  if  there  were  any  guarantee 
that  after  action  is  performed  with  seriousness  and 
some  measure  of  good  judgment  the  constitution  of 
our  world  permitted  both  truth  and  beauty  to  crown 
the  effort  of  action.  But  there  is  no  such  guarantee; 
and  this  is  the  ground  upon  which  the  priority  of 
morality  must  be  denied.  Moral  action,  even  when 
calculated  to  the  highest  of  ends,  even  the  end  of 
beauty,  and  directed  by  the  most  rational  of  judg- 
ments, often  peters  out  in  the  thin  air  of  paltry  pusil- 
animity  and  leaves  neither  a  trace  of  the  good  will 
and  competent  judgment  of  the  actor,  nor  of  any 
objectives  realized.  This  is  the  ultimate  comedy  of 
the  life  of  mind.  Or,  under  the  most  competent  of 
judgment  and  the  nicest  determination  of  ends  by 
serious  purposiveness,  where  the  interpretation  of  the 
conditions  (this  is  the  rueful  truth  of  morality)  made 
by  the  reason  seems  favorable  and  propitious,  the  ends 
achieved  may,  often  are,  the  exact  contrarv  of  what 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  229 

were  intended,  and  may  on  occasion  be  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  actor  himself.  This  is  the  tragedy  of  the 
life  of  mind;  and,  as  the  last  word  of  moral  history, 
this  gruesome  result  is  the  typical  issue;  a  world  in 
which  the  grotesquely  bad  is  coupled  by  necessity  with 
good  intent  justified  by  good  judgment — an  irrational 
world. 

But  morality  is  still  obligatory — is  obligation.  We 
have  not  intended  to  question  the  inescapable  necessity 
by  which  men  are  impelled  to  recognize  the  destiny 
of  fruitless  action  in  which  they  are  caught  and  held. 
The  ass  must  continue  to  grind  at  the  mill.  But  while 
we  grind  things  may  be  true  even  though  bad,  and 
beauty  smiles  through  the  Gorgon's  horrid  face. 

Thus  the  speculative  imagination,  in  defining  and 
creating  the  objects  of  truth  and  beauty  in  a  world 
exhausted  with  endless  action,  gives  to  the  life  of 
mind  the  objects  of  its  highest  significance.  And  if 
our  world  were  epitomizable  in  any  one  object — the 
mistake  of  the  single  eye  of  morality — then  the  specu- 
lative imagination  would  have  to  be  recognized  as  the 
final  act  of  the  mind-life.  But  to  the  speculative 
imagination  the  world  is  yet  not  one;  it  is  partial. 
The  oneness  of  our  world  is  accomplished  through  the 
rational  imagination. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

(IX)     IMAGINATION  AS  REASON. 

We  have  distinguished  the  imagination  as  the  specu- 
lative function  from  the  imagination  as  reason  by  say- 
ing that  the  former  gives  us  our  completest  knowledge 
of  the  object  as  a  whole,  while  the  latter  gives  us  the 
principles  by  which  objects  become  for  us  unities  as 
systems.  And  we  had  assumed  earlier  that  any  under- 
standing of  experience  must  be  in  terms  of  objects. 
It  was  as  a  basis  of  these  presuppositions  that  mor- 
ality as  a  speculative  ideal  turned  out  to  be  self-con- 
tradictory in  that  it  necessitated  the  synthesis  of  action 
with  completeness  in  an  object  considered  as  a  unity. 
While  this  result  seems  serious  to  the  moralists,  we 
shall  not  bother  about  it.  There  is  no  reason  why  the 
reasonable  man  should  complain  if  his  action,  even 
his  thought  action,  consistently  fails,  so  long  as  he 
can  demonstrate  the  irrationality  of  the  world  in 
which  action  must  take  place.  He  can  as  a  rational 
being  stand  above  such  a  world,  and  his  imprecation 
of  its  littleness  clears  his  skirts  of  any  complicity  in 
its  weakness.  And  while  he  must  act,  the  necessity 
does  not  involve  his  freedom,  since  the  action  can  be 
shown  to  his  own  intelligence  as  a  function  of  the 
baseness  of  a  world  he  never  willed,  and  he  justifies 
and  vindicates  himself  by  his  execration  of  that  base- 
I  ness.     The  rational  attitude  to  an  irrational  world  is 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  231 

the  sneer  of  disdain. 

But  while  all  this  may  be,  is,  necessitated  by  a 
rational  understanding  of  your  world,  it  is  not  agree- 
able to  your  aesthetic  sense  or  your  sense  for  truth. 
Then  while  it  is  a  truth  guaranteed  by  the  under- 
standing, we  cannot  as  rational  beings  accept  it.  But 
since  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  ordinary  under- 
standing as  conditioned  upon  the  speculative  imagi- 
nation no  solution  of  the  irrational  situation  is  pos- 
sible, speculation  withdraws  from  such  a  world  and 
becomes  creative  of  the  more  refined  realities  in  a 
region  detached  from  the  actualities  of  life.  That  is, 
speculative  imagination  isolates  its  object.  But  this 
detachment,  or  rather  unattachment,  itself  constitutes 
a  flaw  in  life  which  cannot  be  endured,  and  to  over- 
come the  intolerable  gulf  left  by  the  withdrawal  of 
art-  and  truth-values  from  the  world  of  practical  liv- 
ing, imagination  once  more  responds  in  a  new  form 
to  the  demand  of  wholeness.  Under  these  conditions 
imagination  begins  to  operate  as  reason. 

The  unity  which  speculation  gives  to  the  objects  of 
life  is  a  unity  that  is  internal  to  those  objects,  and  de- 
termines their  constitution  as  units.  Such  a  unity  is 
what  the  philosophers  call  subjective;  and  they  seem 
to  mean  by  this  a  unity  that  is  self-contained  and  in- 
centric,  a  unity  which  organizes  the  parts  of  a  thing 
with  reference  to  each  other  only  and  without  respect 
to  anything  outside  the  thing  organized.  Thus  it  de- 
termines objects  as  self-sufficient  wholes,  makes  them 
perfect  specimens  of  order  as  to  their  own  constitution, 


2M  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

but  offers  no  suggestions  as  to  how  any  degree  of  order- 
liness can  be  established  among  a  plurality  of  such 
unit -iv holes.  This  we  can  see  from  an  instance  of  the 
highest  form  of  speculation,  the  art  object.  The  per- 
fect statue  is  complete  in  itself,  and  makes  no  reference 
to  its  setting  until  you  begin  to  interpret  it,  to  give  it 
meanings  which  it  does  not  have.  Any  particular  part 
of  the  art-object  refers  to  another  part  of  the  same  ob- 
ject, and  the  end  of  the  art  is  attained  when  the  ref- 
erence is  reciprocally  balanced  between  the  parts  in 
such  a  way  that  you  do  not  need,  nay,  may  not,  go 
outside  the  parts-relation  in  order  to  comprehend  the 
whole  as  the  unity  of  beauty.  This  is  why  we  may  say 
that  the  art-experience  is  complete  and  thus  the  high- 
est form  of  the  speculative  adventure.  It  as  creative 
is  the  carving  out  of  the  void  of  perfection  of  form, 
which  is  perfect  because  it  is  the  form  of  the  void — 
the  form  which  ignores  the  possible  existence  of  con- 
crete references  beyond  itself.  And  even  while  it  may 
be  charged  that  here  speculation  turns  upon  itself  as 
contemplation,  it  seems  to  make  little  difference  what 
happens  abstractly  in  the  mind  of  the  observer,  or  in 
what  terms  such  happenings  may  have  to  be  described 
psychologically;  what  is  immediate  and  intuitive  and 
self-evident  in  the  art-experience  is  an  object  which 
appears  as  (which,  aesthetically,  means  is)  the  inter- 
reference  of  detail  reduced  to  balance  and  oneness 
without  suggestion  to  anything  beyond  itself.  They 
say  that  a  frame  sets  off  a  picture;  but  a  picture  that 
needs  a  frame  is  one  which  could,  and  in  a  perfect  art 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  2M 

would,  be  improved,  and  one  which  must  be  framed  is 
one  that  loses  its  art  in  attempting  to  escape  the  false 
unity  which  the  dabbler  artist  has  forced  upon  it.  It 
is  a  bad  beast  that  must  be  caged.  So  far,  then,  as 
the  speculative  mind  goes,  it  finds  its  completion  in 
the  finish  of  objects  which  have  their  reality  shut  up 
within  their  own  internal  skins. 

If  any  further  proof  of  the  limitation  of  the  specu- 
lative mind  were  needed,  it  would  be  sufficient  to  men- 
tion the  results  of  the  application  of  imagination  in 
the  realm  of  truth.  Here  it  produces  when  applied  to 
nature  that  monstrosity  called  the  atom;  and  when  ap- 
plied to  human  nature  that  abortion  of  thought,  the 
"psychological  individual." 

Just  as  the  speculative  imagination  must  go  beyond 
the  lower  forms  to  complete  their  weakness  and  re- 
pair the  breaks  they  leave  in  the  mind-life,  so  reason 
must  finish  the  work  of  speculation.  We  have  just 
now  pointed  out  some  of  the  more  serious  weaknesses 
of  speculation,  and  have  indicated  by  hint  at  least  how 
the  reason  overcomes  them. 

Speculation,  as  has  been  seen,  aims  at  the  unity  of 
the  object.  Its  work  is  finished  when  it  has  demon- 
strated the  object  as  real.  Reason  goes  on  to  attempt 
the  unity  of  objects.  Its  work  is,  therefore,  to  compli- 
cate unity  with  diverse  plurality  and  then  overcome 
the  confusion  in  a  higher  unity.  It  begins  by  taking 
for  granted  the  objects  of  the  speculative  imagination 
— the  objects  of  thought,  art,  and  morality— and  at- 
tempts to  weave  them  into  higher  wholes.    It  thus  be- 


234  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

gins  with  the  abstract  whole  of  speculation,  which  is 
a  whole  rendered  a  unity  by  the  subjective  interfer- 
ence of  parts,  and  constructs  a  concrete  whole  as  an 
objective  unity  of  wholes.  In  the  former  case  the  law 
which  is  constitutional  to  parts  is  inside  the  wholeness 
involved;  in  the  latter  the  law  is  constitutive  of  wholes 
outside  the  immediate  wholeness  of  objects,  in  their 
relations  which  constitute  references  beyond  them- 
selves as  wholes  to  the  wholeness  of  a  type  or  species. 
Speculation  is  immanent  to  the  whole;  reason  is  ex- 
traneous and  objective  to  wholes,  and  its  goal  is  sys- 
tem or  orderliness  as  such. 

It  is  thus  that  the  reason  is  the  instrument  of  com- 
prehension. Its  peculiar  capacity  is  to  apprehend  the 
isolated  wholeness  of  objects  as  taken  severally  and 
then  comprehend  this  wholeness  as  the  unity  of  the 
objects  in  a  self-subsistent  system.  It  is  the  proper 
sphere  of  order,  and  is  responsible  for  the  systematic 
organization  of  the  world  as  known  to  rational  beings. 
But  since  a  proper  description  of  the  life  of  reason 
takes  us  beyond  the  life  of  mind  as  known  outside  of 
metaphysics,  we  cannot  here  go  further  with  it.  But 
we  may  be  permitted  the  suggestion  that,  for  the  rea- 
son, mind  itself  is  taken  as  a  speculative  object,  and 
its  place  sought  within  the  system  of  reality  as  a 
whole.  The  life  of  reason  is  properly  beyond  the  life 
of  mere  mind;  but  we  cannot  now  pursue  it  further. 
The  imperfection  of  morality  and  the  life  of  action 
presses  us  with  too  great  insistence,  and  here  we  must 
stop  our  account  of  mind  as  such  in  the  interest  of  a 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  235 

description  of  the  practical  life.  Our  conclusion  as  to 
the  life  of  mind  must  be  made  practical  in  the  guid- 
ance of  action  toward  successful  living. 


PART  VI. 

MIND  AS  PRODUCTIVE — THE  CREATION  OF  INSTITU- 
TIONAL FORMS. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

THE  PRACTICAL  OR  PRODUCTIVE  LIFE. 

The  practical  life  is  essentially  the  life  of  imagina- 
tion. And  the  degree  of  significance  or  success  with 
which  it  is  lived  depends  upon  the  type  of  imaginative 
power  it  succeeds  in  developing.  The  practical  life 
may  remain,  and  does  so  consistently  for  the  great 
majority  of  people,  dependent  upon  the  degree  of 
imaginativeness  represented  in  the  fundamental  in- 
stincts. It  is  not  here  a  question  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  good  life  and  the  bad  life,  indeed  that  is 
not  the  question  we  are  going  to  consider.  The  dis- 
cussion of  morality  has  shown  that  the  good  life  or 
the  bad  is  simply  a  question  as  to  what  extent  life 
succeeds  in  making  full  use  of  imaginative  power;  the 
life  that  can  be  called  good  resting  upon  the  use  of 
the  imagination  in  the  speculative  and  rational  proc- 
esses, the  life  that  is  bad  upon  the  lower  powers  of 
instinct,  imitation  and  complication.  The  life  of  the 
great  mass  of  men  lives  itself  out  in  the  sphere  of 
activities  which  never  surpass  the  stage  of  complica- 
tion; and,  since  our  civilization  sums  itself  up  thus  in 
complicative  invention,  the  limit  for  it  lies  in  the  end- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  237 

less  process  of  multiplication  of  tools.  We  have  thus 
reached  the  "great  age  of  invention,"  and  of  the  in- 
terests that  are  exhausted  in  the  possessing  the  earth 
and  the  fulness  thereof.  Instruments  of  life  have  been 
multiplied  until  it  is  often  a  question  whether  life  is 
not  lost  in  the  confusion  of  instruments  designed  to 
the  furtherance  of  life;  and  the  question  forces  itself 
upon  the  thoughtful  as  to  whether  man  may  not  be- 
come the  victim  of  the  very  tools  he  has  perfeceted 
in  the  interest  of  his  welfare.  Through  the  control  of 
steam  power,  man  has  developed  a  system  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  products  of  his  labor  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  so  that  sufficient  quantities  of  goods  may 
be  rushed  so  quickly  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the 
earth  that  no  being  need  go  hungry.  There  is  in  ex- 
istence a  system  of  husbandry  by  which  human  want 
may  be  quickly  relieved  in  so  far  as  the  fundamentals 
of  food  and  shelter  are  concerned.  Yet,  with  all  our 
perfected  machinery,  famine  stalks  undismayed 
throughout  the  very  circumference  of  the  earth,  and 
men  die  of  want  in  the  midst  of  lavish  and  wanton 
waste.  Children  die  of  cold  where  warmth  is  dissi- 
pated to  the  winds;  and  of  disease  where  the  means 
of  prevention  lie  immediately  at  hand.  The  aged  die 
of  starvation  and  hardship  where  the  youth  rot  in 
affluence  and  idleness.  Culture  suffocates  in  filth 
where  substance  is  dedicated  to  foulness  and  nasty 
reek.  Some  means  of  control  must  be  found  for  the 
use  and  direction  of  the  instruments  of  life. 

Thus  it  turns  out  that  the  imagination  is  caught  and 


238  THE  LIFE  OF  MIXD 

held  fast  in  the  intricacies  of  the  very  machinery 
which  itself  created  in  the  interest  of  its  own  freedom. 
This  point  is  often  dilated  upon;  but  in  the  majority 
of  cases  where  it  is  intelligently  discussed,  it  is  ac- 
cepted as  the  judgment  of  omnipotent  fate,  as  if  there 
were  at  the  basis  of  the  practical  life  a  great  mystery 
which  defied  all  attempts  at  understanding.  But  the 
matter  is  simple.  We  are  living  on  the  lower  levels  of 
imagination,  where  use  and  wont  and  automatism  and 
imitation  have  become  the  deceptions  that  convince 
us  that  we  are  living  the  rational  life.  We  shall  know 
what  to  do  with  our  machinery  when  we  are  willing 
to  abandon  it,  and  make  the  adventure  of  living  in 
the  pure  realms  of  imagination  and  thought  and  the 
speculative  reason.  I  say  that  as  soon  as  we  are  willing 
to  abandon  the  machine-life  our  machinery  will  of  it- 
self and  automatically  fall  into  its  proper  place;  as 
soon  as  we  will  consent  to  think  we  shall  not  any  more 
have  to  grovel  and  grub  a  mere  existence  out  of  the 
filth  and  refuse  of  a  machine-made  world.  This  does 
not  mean  that  the  instruments  of  life  shall  require  to 
be  destroyed  or  even  that  they  shall  fall  into  disuse. 
It  means  that  when  we  stop  to  think  we  shall  control 
them  in  the  interest  of  real  ends,  and  not  be  controlled 
by  them  and  compelled  by  them  to  waste  the  life 
process  in  endless  futility.  It  means  that  as  rational 
beings  we  are  called  upon  to  live  in  the  higher  reaches 
of  imagination  where  we  may  enjoy  the  beneficence  of 
culture. 

How  to  live  thr  practical  or  productive  life;  this  is 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  2M) 

the  great  question.  In  all  the  long  psychological  dis- 
cusions  which  have  preceded  this  question  has  been  in 
our  minds,  and  it  was  the  purpose  of  that  discussion 
to  prepare  the  way  for  the  answer  which  is  to  follow  in 
succeeding  chapters.  Especially  was  this  true  in  our 
discussion  of  imagination,  for  it  is  in  and  through  the 
imagination  that  the  practical  life  is  to  be  lived.  We 
live  in  the  lower  phases  of  the  imagination  a  life  not 
worthy  of  our  high  estate;  in  the  higher  reaches  of 
that  capacity  we  breathe  the  air  of  freedom  and  at- 
tain the  fulness  of  the  life  that  is  appropriate  to  the 
real  man  that  is  struggling  in  all  of  us.  The  details 
of  the  rich  and  successful  life  will  be  worked  out  and 
made  plain  in  the  chapters  that  follow.  The  story  will 
follow  closely  the  analysis  of  the  life  of  mind  which 
we  have  given  in  preceding  pages.  For  the  real  life 
is  the  life  of  Mind;  and  the  real  Mind  is  the  sum  of 
Imaginative  power. 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

(i)    THE   PRACTICAL   CHARACTER. 

First  it  will  be  necessary  to  give  an  analysis  of  the 
practical  character  as  that  character  is  formed  by  our 
training  and  breeding.  We  shall  find  it  consisting  of 
a  solid  basis  in  the  lower  stages  of  imagination,  upon 
which  is  built  the  lofty  structures  of  our  ideals.  Later 
we  must  show  how  these  ideals  control  and  direct  our 
lives. 

By  the  practical  life  is  meant  the  whole  life  that 
one  lives  from  day  to  day.  There  is  an  erroneous 
popular  impression  that  the  practical  life  consists 
merely  in  the  group  of  activities  by  which  one  makes 
a  living  or  makes  money  or  gets  rich  and  powerful. 
The  life  of  practice  means  then  the  actual  life,  the 
whole  life  of  the  individual  as  it  embraces  his  thoughts 
and  actions  and  purposes.  As  we  shall  describe  it, 
the  practical  will  not  only  involve  the  individual  and 
all  his  interests,  but  it  will  embrace  also  the  whole 
scheme  and  system  of  things  and  persons  that  make 
up  what  we  know  as  the  individual's  environment.  The 
practical  life  is  then  the  complex  structure  within 
which  the  individual  lives  and  moves  and  has  his  be- 
ing. To  describe  it  completely  and  in  all  its  detail  is 
the  purpose  of  what  are  called  the  social  sciences;  and 
it  is  obvious  that  we  cannot  go  into  the  detail  of  that 
vast  mass  of  learning.    Yet  it  will  be  possible  to  state 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  241 

the  principles  of  the  practical  life  with  sufficient  ful- 
ness that  the  matter  will  be  made  reasonably  clear. 

Let  us  begin  with  those  aspects  of  life  which  as 
practical  have  to  do  with  the  organization  of  indi- 
vidual activities  on  the  basis  of  the  lower  and  more 
original  forms  of  imagination.  This  deals  with  what 
are  ordinarily  called  instincts,  and  they  are  described 
commonly  with  a  great  deal  of  mystery.  It  would  be 
a  commonplace  to  say  that  our  human  life,  like  that 
of  animals,  begins  in  the  exercise  of  a  set  of  bodily 
functions.  The  individual  begins  to  develop  his  own 
powers  and  capacities  in  the  processes  of  eating  and 
sleeping  and  taking  exercise  which  he  performs,  as  we 
say,  by  instinct.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  or- 
ganism the  child  "eats  to  live,"  that  is,  the  purpose  of 
his  eating  is  to  recover  the  losses  to  his  body  oc- 
casioned by  his  exercise  in  play,  and  to  furnish  those 
surplus  materials  which  make  possible  his  growth. 
This  is  the  purpose  which  nature  has  in  material  goods 
everywhere,  to  maintain  life  and  to  provide  for  growth. 
And  the  mere  question  of  having  enough  to  eat  and  of 
eating  enough  to  live  is  looked  after  by  those  powers 
which  do  not  yet  involve  the  consciousness,  by  the 
forms  of  the  imagination  which  are  often  described 
as  unconscious  or  subconscious.  But  when  there  arises 
such  a  question  as  whether  the  boy  is  eating  too  much, 
that  is,  is  eating  more  than  is  necessary  for  the  re- 
storation of  tissues  worn  down  in  play,  or  for  the 
proper  requirements  of  growth,  then  there  arises  a  real 
practical  question  as  to  how  the  boy's  eating  can  be 


242  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

properly  adjusted  to  his  play.  Or,  perhaps  the  boy  is 
playing  too  much,  destroys  his  organism  and  his  pow- 
ers faster  than  he  rebuilds  them  by  proper  eating.  And 
most  likely  his  difficulty  is  not  the  adjustment  of  the 
quantity  of  food  to  the  amount  of  exercise,  which  his 
instinct  of  hunger  and  his  instinct  to  be  active  will 
settle  pretty  much  among  themselves;  but  a  question 
of  not  getting  the  right  amount  and  kind  of  nourish- 
ment from  the  quantity  of  food  which  he  eats.  All 
these  matters,  we  say,  are  fairly  well  looked  after  by 
instinct  and  nature;  that  is,  each  activity  is  looked 
after  by  the  appropriate  instinct  and  is  properly  taken 
care  of  by  nature.  But  the  one  thing  that  nature  and 
instinct  do  not  do  is  to  adapt  and  adjust  and  apportion 
the  activities  of  life  to  each  other  and  balance  them 
so  as  to  produce  the  best  results  for  the  life  as  a  whole. 
Left  to  itself,  any  instinct  will  lead  to  excess,  and  to 
excess  in  that  form  which  we  call  vice;  hunger,  by  it- 
self, and  as  a  mere  instinct,  leads  to  overeating;  the 
instinct  for  activity,  by  itself,  leads  to  exhaustion  and 
needless  waste  of  bodily  strength.  The  lower  imagina- 
tive processes,  that  is,  those  dealing  with  life  as  it 
were  at  its  foundation,  when  left  each  to  itself,  is  as 
likely  to  destroy  the  life  as  to  sustain  it.  Nor  is  there 
anything  in  the  instincts  as  mere  instincts  to  guar- 
antee that  they  will  find  the  proper  balance  of  their 
activities  in  the  interest  of  life  as  a  whole.  And  yet, 
somehow,  we  should  know  when  we  have  followed  the 
eating  instinct  to  the  point  where  to  go  further  would 
endanger  the  proper  functioning  of  the  organism  and 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  243 

thus  the  life  of  the  individual. 

There  is  then  nothing  in  the  instincts  by  themselves 
to  show  at  what  point  they  should  stop.  The  mere 
perception  of  their  object  is  not  sufficient  to  control 
their  process.  The  mere  sight  of  food  is  not  enough 
to  stimulate  us  to  eat,  and  it  certainly  does  not  tell 
us  when  to  stop  eating.  The  control  of  instinct  can- 
not be  left  to  perception  as  the  most  important  of  the 
knowing  or  cognitive  processes.  People  who  "know 
better"  sometimes  eat  too  much,  if  for  no  other  rea- 
son than  that  the  food  just  looked  so  good  they  could 
not  resist.  Nor  can  the  control  of  instinct  be  safely 
left  to  feeling.  The  feeling  of  fulness  after  eating  can 
be  produced  by  drinking  water  or  by  blowing  up  a 
baloon  in  the  stomach  through  a  tube  which  is  passed 
down  the  throat.  There  are  in  fact  so  many  ways  of 
producing  feelings  that  none  of  the  feelings  tell  us 
much  about  the  life  or  the  condition  of  the  organism, 
and  what  they  seem  to  tell  us  often  is  wrong  and 
would  lead  us  to  harmful  action  just  as  readily  as 
beneficial  action.  A  disturbance  in  the  bowels  often 
is  felt  as  a  pain  in  the  head.  It  often  is  not  possible 
to  localize  a  feeling  at  all,  and  the  doctors  know  of 
many  cases  where  a  pain  is  referred  to  a  part  of  the 
organism  which  is  not  involved  in  disturbance  of  func- 
tion or  injury  to  structure  at  all.  A  young  man  once 
remarked  that  he  "did  not  know  whether  he  was 
hungry  or  had  a  back-ache,"  a  difficulty  which  he 
ascribed  to  his  extreme  slenderness.  In  this  case  the 
young  man  was  uncertain  both  as  to  the  nature  of 


244  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

the  pain  and  as  to  its  location;  he  did  not  know  what 
it  was  that  he  felt  or  where  he  felt  it.  So  true  is  it 
that  pain  or  any  feelings  are  indefinite  in  quality  and 
location  that  many  good  people  say  they  are  all  un- 
real and  exist  "only  in  the  mind."  This  of  course  is 
not  true,  but  it  shows  how  different  are  our  interpreta- 
tions of  feelings  and  how  unsafe  they  are  as  guides  to 
action.  So  instincts  contain  nothing  in  their  own  na- 
ture that  can  control  them  and  their  application  or 
their  interpretation.  There  is  nothing  in  perception 
or  the  ordinary  processes  of  cognition  which  can  suc- 
cessfully show  them  their  limits  and  bounds  in  the  life 
of  the  individual.  And  there  is  also  nothing  in  the 
feelings,  however  closely  the  feelings  may  be  regarded 
as  connected  with  the  instincts,  which  empowers  them 
to  take  charge  of  instinct  in  the  interest  either  of  the 
mere  maintenance  of  life  or  of  the  enrichment  of  life 
which  we  hold  to  be  the  appropriate  destiny  of  life. 
We  shall  therefore  have  to  look  elsewhere  for  the  type 
of  imaginative  power  which  makes  the  sum  of  all  our 
instincts  mean  life  and  culture  rather  than  excess  and 
quick  destruction  through  abuse. 

But  before  the  discovery  and  description  of  the 
powers  whereby  we  direct  instinct  toward  the  ends  of 
life  are  undertaken,  let  us  look  more  closely  among 
the  instincts  themselves. 

We  said  by  way  of  example  that  the  instinct  to 
eat  leads  the  individual  to  procure  and  devour  food, 
and  that  the  instinct  to  activity  leads  the  individual 
to  play.    But  since  "no  man  liveth  unto  himself  alone" 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  245 

the  processes  through  which  men  procure  food  and  the 
activities  in  which  they  express  the  play  instinct  lead 
them  to  think  and  act  in  concert  and  to  enjoy  the 
results  of  the  chase  together.  But  the  point  we  wish 
to  emphasize  is  that  since  the  need  for  food  and  the 
need  for  play  occur  simultaneously,  and  as  separate 
instincts  involve  pretty  much  the  same  forms  of  ac- 
tion, the  play  process  and  the  food-procuring  proc- 
ess become  identified  and  the  hunt  becomes  a  game. 
That  is,  the  hunt  for  food  is  played  out  with  the  same 
feeling  accompaniments  as  is  the  play  by  itself.  This 
means  that  work  becomes  interesting,  and  for  the  first 
time  the  direction  which  action  is  to  take  is  determined 
by  the  image  of  its  end;  that  is,  by  the  end  as  it  sets 
itself  up  in  mind  as  interest  previously  to  its  accom- 
plishment through  action.  In  such  activities  we  are 
already  miles  beyond  the  simple  "instincts"  of  eating, 
etc.,  which  we  described  above,  and  have  got  a  start 
toward  an  understanding  of  the  practical  life  as  it 
appears  in  the  experience  of  developed  human  beings. 
The  instincts  then  by  virtue  of  the  very  complication 
of  our  world  all  fall  into  the  same  types  of  active-ex- 
pression, and  in  any  thoroughgoing  description  the 
breaking  up  of  our  primitive  tendencies  to  feeling  and 
action  would  be  altogether  out  of  place  and  a  falsifica- 
tion of  the  facts.  Once  we  see  the  influence  of  the 
image  of  the  end  in  the  instinctive  activities  we  are 
prepared  to  understand  many  of  the  more  complicated 
experience  forms.  Why  a  bird  will  begin  on  a  fine 
spring  day  the  activities  which  will  keep  him  busy  per- 


24h  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

haps  many  days  or  even  weeks  in  building  a  nest,  the 
"purpose"  of  which  he  does  not  "know";  why  he 
builds  the  nest  invariably  after  a  fixed  pattern  and  in 
the  main  of  the  same  materials  and  in  the  same  loca- 
tion or  kind  of  location;  why  he  begins  at  the  same 
time  to  sing  and  to  be  "interested"  in  the  perhaps 
homely  individual  that  will  later  share  the  nest  with 
him;  why  he  in  short  carries  on  in  a  long  complicated 
process  which  reflective  beings  see  to  be  controlled 
throughout  by  purpose,  and  yet  he  himself  gives  no 
evidence  that  he  is  conscious  of  any  purpose;  all  this 
on  the  theory  of  instincts  is  unintelligible  and  is  the 
proper  subject  matter  for  the  song  and  story  which 
the  "social  psychologists"  have  spun  out  as  its  ex- 
planation. What  the  psychologists  have  sensed  by 
their  own  primitive  "instinct"  is  therefore  right:  It  is 
a  matter  of  imagination.  But  this  does  not  mean  that 
the  psychologist  should  exercise  and  celebrate  his  own 
imagination  in  a  work  of  art,  but  should  see  that  the 
fact  that  he  is  trying  to  describe  is  in  the  bird  as  a 
function  of  its  image-forming  "mind,"  that  the  fact 
is  the  image  or  shadow  which  the  future  casts  on  the 
present  and  which  serves  in  the  present  as  a  plan.  It 
is  beside  the  point  to  raise  any  questions  of  "con- 
sciousness." What  is  there  as  fact  is  the  complicated 
situation- as-it -will-be  operating  now  as  the  pattern 
of  what  is  becoming.  To  say  that  what  as  yet  is  not 
does  not  exist  or  is  not  real,  or  has  no  effective  in- 
fluence upon  what  has  been  and  what  will  be,  is  merely 
to  give   expression   to   a   very   "primitive"   time  "in- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND        -  247 

stinct." 

Of  course  it  is  true  that  these  simple  facts,  when 
rightly  misapprehended,  make  beautiful  story  ma- 
terials, so  readily  do  they  take  on  the  gorgeous  dress 
of  fancy  because  of  their  imaginal  basis;  and  the 
psychologists,  particularly  the  social  variety,  love  to 
sit  in  the  dusky  twilight  under  the  owl  and  grandma 
the  rest  of  us  into  the  peace  and  calm  of  intellectual 
slumber.  Perhaps  they  know,  for  they  must  know, 
that  good  children  should  not  be  so  wide  awake  as  to 
ask  distracting  questions  when  a  good  story  is  being 
told,  or  when  the  story  depends  for  its  force  upon  its 
continuity.  But  as  they  know,  for  they  must  know, 
that  there  is  a  difference  between  the  continuity  of  a 
story  and  its  continuousness;  but  that  is  a  subtlety 
which  good  children's  minds  should  not  be  bothered 
with.  So  on  they  go  with  the  story  of  how  a  great 
knight  discovered  yet  another  lurking  instinct ;  and  an- 
other; and  how  the  great  knight  finally  reflected  that 
it  is  easier  to  discover  instincts  by  shaking  the  "classi- 
fications" along  with  the  appropriate  hocus  pocus, 
since  these  thickets  of  bramble  are  the  favorite  haunts 
of  instincts  and  their  refuge  when  in  danger  of  being 
caught.  But  the  great  knight  knows  not  to  enter  the 
thicket  lest  he  lose  his  "vision,"  as  .did  the  wondrous 
wise  man  in  our  town.  But  it  is  not  our  purpose  to 
write  a  history  of  "mere"  literature. 

What  we  wish  to  assert  is  that  the  question  of  in- 
stinct, when  it  means  any  intelligible  thing,  is  a  qaes- 
lion  of  being  careful  and  honest  with  the  facts. 


248  -       THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

Let  us  now  go  on  with  the  description  of  a  more  or 
less  complicated  instinctive  situation  as  it  operates  in 
the  life  of  a  human  being.  Since  the  body  of  the  in- 
stinct in  much  of  its  area  and  activity  lies  outside  the 
human  being  with  whom  we  normally  connect  it,  our 
description,  if  adequate,  will  be  also  a  proper  and  full 
account  of  the  "social"  aspect  of  instinct.  We  see  at 
once  that  the  distinction  between  "individual"  instincts 
and  "social"  instincts  already  muddles  the  situation  to 
a  point  where  no  definite  thing  can  be  said  about  it. 
We  can  therefore  say  what  we  have  to  say  about  in- 
stinct as  a  basis  of  the  practical  life  without  any  ref- 
erence to  the  supposed  distinction  between  individual 
and  social. 

If  this  is  so  we  can  consider  instinct  as  a  fact  with- 
out giving  it  any  locus  at  all.  Instinct — whatever  in- 
stincts may  turn  out  to  be — is  therefore  simply  an  ob- 
jective fact  of  an  objective  fact-order,  and  all  the  lum- 
ber involved  in  connecting  it  with  some  specific  aspect 
of  the  life  of  men  at  some  specific  point  has  done  noth- 
ing but  harm  to  our  understanding  of  it  as  fact.  Now, 
if  instinct  does  not  require  a  site,  or  a  locus,  then  all 
the  usual  clap-trap  by  which  its  alleged  operation 
through  tropism  and  reflex  is  effected  is  nonsense.  Re- 
flex is  itself  one  fact  within  the  instinct-whole,  or  is 
one  aspect  of  the  fact  instinct;  but  it  is  not  an  inert 
mechanism  through  which  instinct  vents  its  mysteri- 
ous force-agency  of  feeling,  as  is  so  often  assumed. 
Then,  when  we  approach  a  human  situation,  our  in- 
dividual  grows  up  under,  and  his  characteristics  are 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  249 

determined  by,  e.  g.,  the  institution  of  marriage  and 
the  family  rather  than  under  the  inner  ache  of  sex,  the 
existence  of  which  is  discovered  to  him  by  and  in  the 
institutions  of  life  even  before  it  as  an  instinct  is  ever 
felt  by  him.  Young  human  beings  do  not  grow  up 
impelled  by  an  irresistible  desire  or  some  inner  in- 
evitable urge  to  go  seek  out  the  opposite  sex  and  thus 
provide  for  the  continuity  of  the  race.  Long  before 
the  "instinct"  of  sex  has  asserted  itself  the  boy  and 
girl  have  by  play  institutions  mimicked  the  whole  life 
process  of  the  race,  including  its  idea  forms,  so  that 
later  they  enter  the  marriage  relation  largely  by  mere 
habit,  and,  it  may  be,  against  the  influence  of  sex  "in- 
stincts." 

Then  the  part  played  by  instinct  in  the  life  of  man 
is  tremendously  important,  so  important,  in  fact,  that 
it  should  be  rescued  from  the  "scientists"  who  know 
nothing  about  it  until  they  cut  it  up  into  bits  and 
then  describe  the  bits  in  their  bloody  mutilation  as  if 
they  were  the  original  facts.  They  place  these  bits 
neatly  end-to-end  in  a  beautiful  scheme  representing 
the  life-history  of  either  the  individual,  social,  or  "ra- 
cial" forms — pay  your  money  and  take  your  choice — 
or  arrange  them  in  attractive  patterns — "action  pat- 
terns"— to  represent  the  anatomical  cross-section  of 
the  life  processes  of  either,  again,  the  individual,  social 
"group"  or  race.  For  those  who  are  in  need  of  such 
a  commodity  in  the  commerce  of  culture,  there  are  na- 
tional patterns  that  can  be  had  in  any  color  or  de- 
sign if  you  wish  to  pay  the  price.    And,  as  I  am  told, 


250  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

assurances  guaranteeing  the  permanence  and  "prepo- 
tency" of  any  scheme  of  racial  instincts  or  pattern 
complexes  are  obtainable  at  so  much  per.  This  exer- 
cising of  the  complicative  imagination  upon  instinct 
has  reached  a  stage  where,  as  I  believe,  it  should  be 
recognized  as  one  of  the  fine  arts,  and  enjoyed  in  the 
same  way  that  we  do  not  require  to  understand  other 
forms  of  artistic  products;  and  I  suggest  in  the  inter- 
est of  "our"  culture  that  some  foundation  be  estab- 
lished to  protect  its  producers  against  the  old  age  of 
reflection  which  would,  if  they  should  reach  it,  play 
havoc  with  the  delicate  products  of  their  artistic 
genius. 

Instinct  is  then  the  simple  fact  that  the  life  history 
of  man  has  become  institutionally  organized  within 
the  process  of  his  life.  The  fact  that  the  sexes  have 
co-operated  historically,  and  not  merely  biologically, 
in  the  continuity  of  the  race,  is  now  an  organized 
necessity  in  the  life  of  the  individual;  and,  on  evolu- 
tional principles,  it  is  because  of  this  historical  ar- 
rangement in  the  species  life  that  the  sex  functions 
are  an  organic  necessity  in  the  lives  of  individual  or- 
ganisms. One  aspect  of  the  "instinct"  of  beauty  is 
the  organization  in  the  life  of  the  individual  of  the 
historical  necessity  of  shelter  as  it  operated  institu- 
tionally in  building  houses.  Even  the  more  "primi- 
tive" biological  ''instincts,"  such  as  fear,  anger,  etc., 
as  they  operate  in  the  life  of  a  modern  human  being, 
are  the  organized  aspects  of  historical  wont,  and  it  is 
the  superstition  which  holds  to  the  unsubstantially  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  251 

historically  determined  institutions  which  connects 
them  with  the  organism  rather  than  with  the  histori- 
cally institutionalized  aspects  of  the  species.  It  is,  j 
therefore,  nonsense  to  classify  instincts  and  to  try  to 
find  for  each  a  particularized  point  of  continuity  with 
either  the  organism  or  the  mind,  for  in  such  concep- 
tions both  organism  and  mind  become  abstractions  be- 
cause of  the  paucity  of  their  substantial  relations.  If 
instincts  must  be  classified  because  we  do  not  yet 
know  how  to  adapt  our  scientific  methods  to  the  facts, 
then  they  should  have  to  be  classified  according  to 
their  specific,  i.  e.,  their  species-indicating,  characters, 
according  to  the  reference  they  make  to  historically 
institutionalized  aspects  of  the  species-life. 

So  far  as  the  practical  character  can  be  described  in 
terms  of  instincts,  it  is  the  order  of  species-tendencies 
as  they  determine  the  characteristic  modes  of  think- 
ing, feeling,  and  willing  in  the  life  of  the  individual. 
I  say  it  is  the  order  of  life  as  it  determines  the  modes 
of  thinking,  feeling,  and  action;  but  this  does  not 
mean  that  the  life  of  the  individual  is  predetermined 
in  the  accidents  of  his  past.  All  it  means  is  that  in 
so  far  as  the  individual  thinks,  feels,  acts,  history  has 
already  laid  out  the  directions  which  he  must  follow, 
otherwise  there  would  be  no  possibility  that  the  life 
of  the  individual  could  be  made  practically  consistent 
with  the  life  of  other  individuals,  and  the  traditional 
superstitions  about  conflict  and  struggle  as  the  law 
of  life  would  be  true;  whereas  the  fact  is  that  life  is 
historically  adapted  to  the  compossibility  and  the  har- 


252  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

monious  mutual  carrying  out  of  life  purposes  by  indi- 
viduals, and  such  struggle  as  there  is — and  it  is  too 
crudely  real — is  the  outcome  of  our  theories  about 
struggle.  The  practical  character,  then,  as  instinctive, 
if  it  must  be  described  in  terms  of  its  fragmentary 
parts,  is  the  ordered  whole  of  those  tendencies  to  ac- 
tion, feeling  and  thought  which  are  automatically  his- 
torically organized  in  our  life  as  the  fundamentals  of 
the  relations  among  individuals  and  their  world.  It 
is  the  plane  prepared  by  historical  activity  upon  which 
our  actions  may  be  made  effectually  real;  it  is  the 
background  built  up  by  history  in  its  mind  activities 
against  which  our  image-plans  may  be  mirrored  as 
memory-forms,  so  that  thought  may  be  substantiated; 
it  is  the  mass  of  portent  which  the  whole  of  history 
vaguely  presents  as  the  felt  undefined  wholeness  of 
the  world  in  which  we  think  and  act,  the  emotional 
nebula  in  which  thought  and  action  carve  out  the 
solid  realities  of  life. 

Instinct  then  means  order.  It  means  order  as 
grounded  and  substantiated  in  historic  wont.  But  as 
instinct,  and  as  a  separate  and  classifiable  fact  of  life, 
it  is  order  vague  and  unspecified,  order  as  yet  not 
erected  in  the  harmony  of  life  to  the  state  of  free  sym- 
metry and  balance.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  instinct 
may  be  said  to  be  "blind,"  and  that  there  may  be  at- 
tributed to  it  that  inevitableness  and  fatality  which 
makes  of  it  for  the  ordinary  person  a  complete  and 
sufficient  explanation  of  every  other  fact  of  life.  Thus 
to  say  of  a  mode  of  thought  or  behavior  that  it  is 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  253 

"instinctive"  means  that  ordinarily  nothing  else  can 
or  need  be  said  of  it.  It  is  the  blind  ultimate  to 
which  all  things  are  referred.  It  is  also  this  fact  that 
makes  the  subject  so  difficult  of  strictly  unprejudiced 
discussion.  It  asserts  itself  in  its  own  defense  when 
made  the  subject  of  discussion,  and  usually  wins  the 
argument.  As  organized  in  the  individual  life  it  is 
the  set  of  general  skills  to  which  his  organism  and 
his  mind  are  predisposed  by  his  historic  position  in 
the  human  species.  It  is  the  heritage  of  race  accom- 
plishment upon  which  the  individual  stands  as  he 
reaches  out  into  the  possible  in  the  effort  to  make  his- 
tory actual  in  the  concrete  present,  as  that  present  is 
presented  to  him  in  the  perceptive  and  imaginal  as- 
pects of  a  world  considered  as  environment  and  ma- 
terial. It  is  the  species  operating  in  the  individual  to 
perpetuate  itself,  the  universal  groping  blindly  to  in- 
dividualize itself  in  the  particular.  It  is  this  prima 
facie  immediate  aspect  of  the  particular  which  appeals 
to  the  scientific  mind,  and  deceives  the  scientist  into 
believing  that  he  can  begin  with  it  as  crude  presented 
fact  and  then  work  backward  to  the  universal.  But 
such  procedure  merely  ends  with  the  general,  the  ab- 
stract average  of  fact  which  finds  contact  with  re- 
ality at  no  specific  point.  Hence  the  particular  of  sci- 
ence is  never  individualized,  and  remains  the  abstract 
form  of  the  real  which  the  scientist  loves  so  well  to 
display  in  its  mathematical  perfection  as  the  exact  but 
empty  specimen  of  quantity.  It  is  for  this  reason  thai 
science  can  never  in  its  exact  mathematical  formalism 


254  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

attain  to  the  function  of  a  philosophy.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  a  scientific  account  of  instinct  will  never 
issue  in  an  acceptable  formulation  of  instinct  as  a  func- 
tion of  the  life  of  mind.  Its  account  of  instinct  will 
remain  forever  a  biological  story  of  tropism  and  re- 
flex; but  it  will  never  be  able  to  make  biology  a  com- 
plete account  of  life,  even  of  those  aspects  of  life 
which  give  form  and  meaning  to  the  organism.  That 
such  is  recognized  by  biologists  is  shown  by  their  re- 
cent tendency  to  appeal  to  psychological  considera- 
tions; but  to  those  biologists  who  see  psychology  as  a 
mere  transcript  of  physics  as  applied  to  moving  mat- 
ter, there  begins  to  appear  the  necessity  to  appeal  to 
the  speculative  logic  of  imagination  to  furnish  to  their 
science  the  concepts  with  which  alone  it  will  be  pos- 
sible to  make  their  science  a  valid  account  of  life. 

It  is  through  the  appeal  to  the  practical  character 
that  the  real  logic  of  reality  begins  to  dawn  upon  us. 
It  was  the  abortive  and  fleeting  instinctive  glimpse  of 
this  truth  that  gave  pragmatism  its  momentary  vogue. 
But  pragmatism  was  unwilling  (to  avoid  the  harsher 
but  truer  word)  to  follow  up  this  glimpse  with  the 
logic  which  would  have  elevated  it  to  the  clear  light 
of  the  speculative  imagination,  where  the  necessity  to 
formulate  it  in  universal  terms  would  have  disclosed 
the  philosophy  of  instinct  in  the  doctrine  of  historic 
institutionalism.  How  near  it  came  in  a  few  fitful 
gleams  is  shown  in  the  tremendous  but  tragically  futile 
effort  to  force  the  idea  of  the  specific  to  do  duty  for 
the  universal  of  logic.    This  the  greatest  of  the  prag- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  255 

matists,  in  an  effort  which  for  honesty  will  become  a 
model  for  future  philosophy,  but  which  for  want  of 
synoptic  imaginative  vision  will  be  cited  as  the  tragic 
defeat  of  the  age  of  practical  individualism,  has  at- 
tempted in  the  experimental  hope  that  universality 
might  be  caught  in  the  confines  of  the  merely  par- 
ticular (situation)  and  thus  be  identified  with  the 
ultimate  simple  of  scientific  method.  But  the  attempt 
overlooked  the  fact  that  specificity  is  an  abstract  sym- 
bol, and  merely  isolates  by  negation  those  aspects  of 
the  universal  that  perception  and  the  merely  cognitive 
capacities  of  mind  can  identify  with  the  particular. 
What  exactly  was  overlooked  was,  in  positive  terms, 
the  fact  that  the  real  meaning  of  specific  is  the  mean- 
ing which  it  carries  in  the  philosophy  of  evolution, 
that  is,  species  forming,  or  species  indicating;  and  its 
significance  as  such  is  not  to  catch  the  universal  or 
the  real  in  the  this  of  presented  reality,  but  to  symbol- 
ize the  fact  that  the  this  logically  implies  a  that  as 
the  weight  of  imaginal  suggestiveness  which  the  par- 
ticular carries  of  the  whole  as  real  or  of  the  real  as 
wholeness. 

The  practical  character  is  the  Individuality.  But 
as  the  practical  character  appears  here  it  is  not  the 
wielder  of  tools  transformative  of  one  specific  situa- 
tion into  another  specific  situation  indefinitely;  it  is 
not  the  apotheosis  of  mere  process.  As  practical,  then," 
it  does  not  imply  use  of  tools,  but  organized  control  of 
tools;  not  the  mere  utility  which  repeats  itself  indefi- 
nitely, but  the  rational   institutionalized  usage  which 


256  THE  LIFE  OF  MINT) 

issues  in  ends.  The  rest  of  this  chapter  will  illustrate. 
The  practical  character  is  the  Person  with  all  his 
various  sorts  of  capacities  and  powers.  The  long  dis- 
cussion of  instinct  has  shown  us  how  manifold  and 
various  are  the  powers  which  the  person  possesses.  It 
is  in  a  truly  literal  sense  that  we  can  say  that  the  nor- 
mal person  of  the  present  possesses  all  the  powers  ever 
developed  in  the  history  of  the  race.  Within  the  in- 
stitutions under  the  influence  of  which  he  uncon- 
sciously grows  up.  there  are  all  the  powers  and  poten- 
cies ever  developed  by  his  ancestry,  and  these  powers 
are  at  his  disposal  the  moment  he  learns  to  use  them. 
The  development  and  training  which  the  person  gets 
or  should  get  in  the  training  of  the  home,  the  school, 
the  shop,  in  all  the  connections  which  surround  his 
life  as  he  grows  up,  should  put  at  his  disposal  all  these 
powers,  and  his  teaching  should  show  him  for  what 
purposes  they  are  to  be  used.  Preserved  in  the  insti- 
tutions of  life  are  the  successful  ways  of  controlling 
things  in  the  interest  of  persons,  as  well  as  the  methods 
whereby  persons  may  unite  in  the  control  of  things  in 
the  interest  of  the  good  of  the  whole.  It  is  not  argued 
of  course  that  the  individual's  whole  life  and  capacity 
are  to  be  found  ready-made  for  him  to  put  on  as  he 
puts  on  a  coat,  but  the  conditions  are  there  at  his  dis- 
posal and  for  his  use.  It  is  for  him  to  learn  how  to 
use  them  successfully,  and  how  to  know  for  what  pur- 
poses to  use  them.  This  indicates  the  importance  of 
the  study  of  psychology  and  the  whole  of  human  na- 
ture.    There  lies  hidden  in  our  own  natures  powers 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

the  existence  of  which  we  do  not  know,  and  which  we 
do  not  know  how  to  use  when  they  are  discovered.  It 
is  at  this  point  that  much  of  our  training  is  wasted, 
for  we  spend  our  time  and  energy  often  in  the  dis- 
covery of  our  "inner  powers/'  in  making  ourselves 
merely  able  to  do  a  lot  of  things.  That  we  should  use 
our  abilities  is  a  vigorous  and  intelligent  way  is  not 
so  often  taught  us.  Or,  it  often  is  pointed  out  that 
we  should,  after  we  have  discovered  our  capacities, 
learn  to  use  them  vigorously  for  our  own  ends  and  pur- 
poses, without  as  yet  knowing  what  our  real  purposes 
are.  It  is  as  important  to  know  what  purposes  are 
important  as  to  know  how  to  accomplish  them.  And 
many  a  vigorous  person  is  wasting  his  powers  just  be- 
cause he  is  spending  them  upon  purposes  which  will 
do  him  no  good  whatever.  A  man  with  the  capacity  to 
organize  a  community  for  the  production  of  something 
useful  should  not  spend  his  time  and  energy  watching 
a  peanut  roaster  and  selling  bags  of  peanuts  to  the 
passersby.  But  just  that  happens  frequently  and  will 
continue  to  happen  until  human  powers  are  more  pur- 
posefully organized  in  .the  community  life. 

The  secret  of  success,  then,  in  so  far  as  success  de- 
pends upon  our  own  personal  efforts,  lies  in  knowing 
just  what  our  purposes  are.  just  what  we  can  and 
should  do  with  them,  and  the  things  we  can  do  that 
are  most  worth  while.  Psychology  can  do  something 
to  acquaint  us  with  our  own  mental  powers  and 
capacities,  and  to  suggest  to  us  the  directions  within 
which  thev  can  be  used.    When  we  learn,  for  instance, 


258  THE  LIFE  OF   MIND 

of  the  existence  of  the  power  of  suggestive  persuasion, 
we  know  that  we  have  or  can  have  a  strong  and  wide 
influence  over  other  persons,  provided  that  we  at  the 
same  time  learn  how  to  use  it.    But  the  influence  may 
be  good  or  bad,  may  be  for  our  good  or  for  other  peo- 
ple's harm,  and  we  should  know  the  nature  of  the  re- 
sults we  may  expect  from  wielding  the  influence  be- 
fore we  undertake  to  use  the  capacity  very  widely. 
It  would  hardly  do  to  create  a  panic  in  the  minds  of 
a  group  of  people  when  you  want  them  to  act  in  a 
certain  way.  for  the  panicky  state  of  mind  may  cause 
them  to  act  in  a  dozen  ways  that  would  be  harmful 
to  everybody  concerned.     The  factory  operator  may, 
through  suggestive  influence,  organize  his  workers  to 
a  point  of  unheard-of  efficiency,  but  if  he  does  it  in  a 
way  to   incur   their   fear   or  hatred  he  is  planting  a 
dangerous   explosive    force   within   his   factory   which 
may  some  day  destroy  the  whole  works. 

The  basis  of  the  individual's  powers  lies  in  the  mass 
of  inherited  tendencies  which  make  up  the  structure 
of  both  his  body  and  his  mind.  But  these  powers  are 
worse  than  useless  unless  they  are  organized  and  set 
to  work  in  the  interest  of  worth-while  ends.  It  is  then 
the  intelligence  that  turns  out  to  be  the  most  impor- 
tant of  our  capacities,  and  it  is  worth  while  to  show 
the  nature  of  the  intelligence  and  its  work  in  the  life 
of  the  practical  character.  By  most  people,  even  by 
those  who  claim  to  be  expert  in  such  matters,  intelli- 
gence is  identified  with  that  keenness  or  that  sharp- 
ness of  wits  which  enables  us  to  do  delicate  or  intri- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  259 

cate  technical  things,  or  else  it  is  identified  with  the 
quickness  with  which  the  individual  responds  to  sug- 
gestions. They  would  have  us  believe  that  the  man 
that  understands  the  works  of  the  watch  and  can  re- 
pair its  delicate  machinery  is  necessarily  intelligent. 
Or,  the  man  who  sticks  upon  some  one  little  unimpor- 
tant thing  until  he  makes  some  money  out  of  it  is 
said  to  show  just  by  his  dogged  persistence  a  great 
intelligence  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  what  he  does  is 
of  no  importance.  A  man  may  know  only  the  works 
of  the  watch  or  how  to  sell  hair  pins  in  great  quan- 
tities, or  to  invent  a  lemon  squeezer,  and  still  be  not 
only  ignorant  of  many  more  important  things,  but  also 
generally  stupid  on  just  the  questions  where  his  own 
interests  lie.  If  I  know  no  more  about  my  world  than 
is  connected  with  selling  hairpins  or  corkscrews,  I 
cannot  possibly  avoid  acting  stupidly  and  even  dis- 
astrously in  some  connections,  for  I  cannot  possibly 
live  in  the  world  at  all  without  getting  involved  in 
many  wider  relations.  This  is  the  reason  why  so  very 
often  the  man  who  makes  a  great  success  of  some 
thing  and  gets  the  reputation  of  possessing  great  in- 
telligence also  gets  into  jail  or  falls  into  disgrace  just 
because  he  knows  only  his  own  little  business.  Then 
it  does  not  seem  that  intelligence  consists  in  the  sharp 
and  keen  and  narrow  capacity  which  only  knows  how 
to  do  its  little  technical  thing,  for  this  kind  of  knowl- 
edge often  leads  to  disaster,  and  we  do  not  like  to 
think  of  the  intelligence  as  the  capacity  for  getting 
into  trouble.     Rather  we  think  of  it  as  the  capacity 


260  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

through  which  we  fit  ourselves  into  our  world  in  such 
a  way  that  things  all  run  smoothly  and  successfully, 
and  we  get  done  some  of  the  things  we  want  to  do.  We 
think  of  it  as  the  capacity  which  shows  us  what  to  do 
under  given  circumstances,  but.  which  also  shows  us 
not  only  in  particular  cases,  but  in  general  what  we 
should  not  do  and  why  we  should  not  do  it.  Thus  it 
gives  us  some  notion  of  the  comparative  worth  of  dif- 
ferent things,  how  things  may  be  given  their  value 
places  in  our  life  system  as  a  whole. 

But  how  does  the  intelligence  distinguish  between 
the  things  we  should  do  and  the  things  we  should  not 
do  if  we  wish  to  live  successful  lives?  Often  the  things 
that  occur  to  us  as  worth-while  things  to  do  are  so 
complicated  and  involved  that  we  cannot  make  head 
or  tail  of  them.  Many  times  what  seems  the  thing  to 
do  involves  a  thousand  other  things  and  persons  over 
which  you  have  no  control,  involves  so  great  a  com- 
plexity of  circumstances  that  it  seems  impossible  to 
do  it  at  all,  even  if  it  really  ought  to  be  done.  Again, 
a  thing  that  occurs  to  you  as  requiring  to  be  done 
often  involves  things  and  events  that  have  never  hap- 
pened, and  which  cannot  happen  for  many  years 
hence,  things  which  you  perhaps  cannot  make  happen 
if  you  wanted  to.  Your  going  through  with  your  plan 
'may  have  to  wait,  for  instance,  until  some  child  grows 
up  to  be  a  man,  or  it  may  have  to  wait  until  two  peo- 
ple who  are  now  enemies  become  friends.  If  you  are 
a  young  man  making  twenty  dollars  a  week  and  see 
your  opportunity  to  take  a  place  that  will  make  you 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  261 

five  times  as  much  money;  if  you  have  to  work  six 
months  before  this  better  job  pays  you  anything  at 
all  after  you  take  it,  and  if  you  are  supporting  a 
widowed  mother  or  keeping  a  sister  in  school;  if  you 
cannot  borrow  enough  money  to  live  on  through  the 
first  six  months;  when  situations  like  that  present 
themselves  to  you,  your  knowledge  of  how  to  run  a 
peanut  roaster  will  not  tell  you  what  to  do.  You  can 
of  course  say  that  you  will  take  the  better  job  and 
risk  finding  some  way  to  make  it  through  the  six 
months  without  pay;  but  suppose  you  get  sick,  or 
your  mother  has  become  disabled  in  trying  to  help 
you,  and  needs  a  doctor.  It  is  evident  that  in  most 
of  the  situations  of  life  our  keenness  or  shrewdness 
along  some  narrow  line  will  help  us  not  one  whit. 
Every  important  situation  in  life  where  our  mind  is 
concerned  is  one  where  we  have  to  look  before  and 
after,  to  judge  the  various  possible  circumstances  and 
results  before  they  have  happened,  to  understand  re- 
lations and  things  we  never  saw  before,  in  fact  where 
we  have  to  pass  a  general  judgment  upon  a  set  of 
facts  that  is  so  big  that  we  can't  see  it  all.  That  is 
to  say,  the  practical  life  presents  us  with  big  problems 
which  call  for  our  knowing  many  things,  and  of  being 
able  to  put  the  multitude  of  things  together  in  some 
way  that  will  enable  us  to  use  them.  As  things  are 
in  this  world  they  are  not  immediately  useful,  and 
are  made  usable  only  by  putting  them  together  in  the 
mind  into  great  systems  upon  which  we  can  depend 
when  we  have  to  make  plans  and  find  the  means  for 


262  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

carrying  them  out.  Intelligence,  then,  is  not  the  spe- 
cialized narrow  technical  capacity,  not  the  sharp  lit- 
tle power  which  works  in  a  narrow  groove  so  that  it 
can  only  come  out  in  a  specified  place.  Intelligence 
is  rather  the  big  comprehensive  capacity  to  put  things 
together  into  big  systems  which  will  help  us  to  define 
our  ideas  over  big  areas  of  fact  and  over  long  stretches 
of  time. 

Intelligence  then  is  the  special  capacity  of  the  per- 
sonality, and  it  does  not  refer  to  a  person's  capacity 
to  do  one  thing.  The  intelligent  man  can  do  many 
things  equally  well,  and  everything  he  does  or  will 
undertake  to  do  he  does  well.  So  that  the  intelligent 
man  is  rarely  faced  with  a  situation  where  he  is  lim- 
ited to  doing  only  one  thing;  the  very  complexity  of 
the  situation  suggests  to  his  broad  mind  many  things 
which  he  can  do,  and  he  is  never  forced,  as  the  "keen" 
man  often  is,  to  do  the  thing  he  knows  to  be  wrong 
or  things  which  he  knows  in  advance  will  come  out 
badly.  This  is  the  reason  so  many  successful  prac- 
tical men  have  something  for  which  they  must  apolo- 
gize; they  know  so  few  things  that  they  really  know 
nothing  well,  consequently  when  a  complex  situation 
is  presented,  they  have  a  very  narrow  choice  and  often 
are  compelled  by  circumstances  to  do  the  wrong  thing. 

The  practical  character  is  then  the  intelligence 
broadened  and  enlarged  and  expanded  to  the  point 
where  it  comprehends  all  sorts  of  capacities  in  one 
great  mass  of  power.  But  not  only  does  it  possess 
many  capacities  and  greater  power,  the  one  thing  that 


THE  LIFE  OF  MEN  J)  263 

distinguishes  it  above  everything  else  in  the  world  is 
its  capacity  to  know  the  best  of  a  number  of  possible 
things.  It  is  the  mind  power  which  knows  the  long- 
run  good,  the  thing  that  is  better  than  other  things. 
To  know  in  this  way  it  must  know  very  many  things 
in  their  relations;  it  knows  the  best  always  by  know- 
ing the  comparatively  better.  The  intelligence  is  the 
mind  that  knows  the  whole,  and  what  to  do  to 
alize  it. 


:he 
re- 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

(II)   THE  SOCIAL  OR  CORPORATE  CHARACTER. 

There  is  no  great  difficulty  in  understanding  the 
practical  or  productive  character  so  long  as  it  is  con- 
sidered as  alone  in  a  world  of  things  with  which  it 
can  do  as  it  pleases.  When  we  look  at  the  practical 
character  as  a  Robinson  Crusoe  which  can  use  in 
whatever  way  it  sees  fit  whatever  it  can  find  on  its 
island,  the  life-scheme  for  it  is  simple.  If  Robinson's 
stool  does  not  suit  him  he  can  throw  it  into  the  sea  or 
burn  it  up,  and  if  the  goat  becomes  unruly  or  inter- 
feres with  his  purposes  in  anyway  he  can  kill  it  and 
eat  it  or  dispose  of  it  in  any  other  way  to  suit  his 
fancy.  But  when  Robinson  had  to  deal  with  Friday 
he  found  his  range  of  action  more  limited,  and  his 
freedom  in  disposing  things  more  and  more  curtailed, 
and  his  "will"  more  and  more  curbed  by  the  mere 
existence  on  the  island  of  another  person.  He  had 
to  come  to  some  sort  of  terms  with  Friday,  and  even, 
no  doubt,  had  to  make  some  concessions  to  the  goat, 
if  he  wanted  to  be  sure  that  he  would  get  his  plans 
all  to  come  out  as  he  desired  that  they  should  come 
out  in  every  case.  When,  therefore,  we  consider  a 
man  as  if  he  and  his  purposes  were  alone  in  a  world 
by  themselves,  and  when  we  consider  that  we  are  un- 
der obligations  only  to  see  that  his  plans  all  come 
out   without   let   or   hindrance   from   anyone   or   any- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  265 

thing,  the  problems  of  his  practical  life  become  sim- 
ple— but  unfortunately  too  simple.  So  simple  indeed 
are  such  accounts  of  the  relations  of  the  practical 
character  that  they  fail  hopelessly  in  giving  anything 
like  a  correct  account  of  the  facts,  and  this  failure 
has  been  responsible  for  most  of  the  very  great  deal 
of  error  with  which  the  theory  of  the  practical  life  is 
afflicted.  For  most  purposes  we  suppose  that  an  in- 
dividual man  goes  about  his  individual  affairs  and 
holds  his  own  individual  relations  with  other  people 
and  other  things,  both  the  other  things  and  the  other 
people  being  considered  as  just  as  completely  indi- 
vidualized and  cut  off  to  themselves  as  the  man  him- 
self. And  we  have  constructed  whole  systems  of  de- 
scription of  these  supposed  facts,  and  to  each  of  the 
systems  we  have  given  the  exalted  name  of  a  science. 
When  our  Mr.  Man  buys  and  sells  and  produces  and 
consumes  goods,  or  corners  them  in  the  stock  market, 
or  in  the  process  of  distribution,  we  tend  to  think  of 
him  as  alone  in  the  world  with  his  wheat  or  cotton 
and  as  innocently  tossing  it  here  and  there  as  a  child 
will  scatter  and  collect  its  play-blocks.  And  just  as 
innocently  we  think  of  the  mass  of  money  which  he 
"makes"  in  the  process  as  being  due  to  a  transforma- 
tion which  Mr.  Man  through  his  business  "acumen" 
has  been  able  to  bring  about  in  the  wheat,  that  is,  we 
think  of  his  having  presto-changed  the  wheat  into 
money.  The  stock  exchange,  the  group  of  bankers, 
the  bucket-shop  artists  and  plungers,  the  grain  dealers' 
association   and   "the"   mystical   farmer   as  producer. 


266  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

arc  all  in  our  mind  merely  as  somehow  adjuncts  to 
or  conditions  or  qualities  of  the  wheat  which  he  so 
astutely  scoops  into  a  bag  of  gold.  In  the  same  way 
we  think  of  Mr.  Man's  "ethics"  as  the  way  he  feels 
toward  and  behaves  to  other  people,  but  his  behavior 
and  feelings  are,  in  our  minds,  just  nothing  but  private 
and  absolute  possessions  of  his  own  "character,"  which 
originate  in  and  project  themselves  out  of  his  char- 
acter in  pretty  much  the  same  way  that  flies  are  born 
in  and  issue  forth  from  a  can  of  garbage.  That  is, 
we  do  not  think  of  his  ethics  as  involving  real  rela- 
tions with  other  persons  and  things,  but  as  somehow 
belonging  innately  in  his  nature  and  making  connec- 
tions with  other  persons  and  things  after  they  have 
issued  from  his  soul  ready-made.  He  then  as  a  moral 
being  is  the  octopus  who  is  born  in  and  comes  to  full 
maturity  in  the  great  open  sea,  and  after  maturity  of 
his  tentacles  has  been  reached,  the  tentacles  reach  out 
and  catch  onto  what  they  will;  and  when  they  will 
they  loose  themselves  from  one  connection  and  attach 
themselves  in  another.  Mr.  Man  is  unbound  in  a 
boundless  and  untenanted  sea.  If  there  are  other  be- 
ings of  his  kind  in  his  wrorld  they  are  treated  as  any 
other  object  useful  to  him  would  be;  he  makes  them 
into  food  and  shelter  for  himself;  their  life's  blood  he 
converts  into  the  wine  of  ambition  for  himself;  their 
souls  and  characters  are  made  the  instruments  of  his 
whim.  We  fall  down  and  worship  this  monstrosity 
and  call  him  neither  Bobus  nor  Baal,  but  the  great 
Economic  Man  and  the  spiritualized  Moral  Individual. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  267 

In  our  common  everyday  speech  we  call  him  the  suc- 
cessful business  man. 

But   it   is   evident   to    anyone   who   has   not   been 
"trained"  in  economic  and  ethical  thought  that  such 
a  being,  or  rather  the  exalted  qualities  we  attribute  to 
it,  are  a  myth;  not  the  harmless  or  mildly  malevolent 
sort  that  has  grown  up  in  other  types  of  mere  litera- 
true,  but  a  real  giant  of  the  ogrish  type  who,  although 
we  do  not  clearly  see  it,  takes  his  toll  of  human  life 
every  day.     But  there  will  some  day  come  the  great 
prophet  who  will  tell  the  story  of  the  Myth  of  the 
Lonely  Man  in  such  plain  language  that  we  cannot 
any  longer  fail  to  see  the  hideous  visage  and  fright- 
ful mein  of  man  reduced  to  a  technological  instru- 
ment who  goes  up  and  down  in  this  world  without 
ruth  or  reck  and  destroys  with  the  blight  of  his  vaunted 
goodness.    The  man,  therefore,  who  gets  described  in 
these  connections  is  not  the  practical  man,  not  the 
human  being  as  he  lives  and  works  and  plays  and 
sings  and  worships  with  and  among  and  in  his  fellows; 
but  the  technical  man,  the  man  as  he  slaves  and  plans 
and  schemes  and  manufactures  his  little  tools  away 
from  and  with  no  regard  or  respect  to  or  of  the  other 
manikins  who  occupy  the  parts  of  his  world  he  has 
not  yet  claimed  for  himself.    The  "man"  who  becomes 
the   hero   of   economic   and   ethical   individualism   is, 
therefore,  not  the  man  of  practice,  the  man  as  he  ex- 
presses himself  and  his  world   in  the  activities   that 
sustain    and    maintain   him    and    his   world,   but    the 
"man"    of   technique,    the    human    being   stripped    of 


268  THE  LIFE  OF  MINI) 

everything  unique  and  human  and  reduced  to  the 
status  and  condition  of  an  instrument  to  the  produc- 
tion of  an  extra-human  good.  It  is  not  in  this  case 
the  man  who  freely  fashions  the  product  and  dedicates 
it  to  his  life  and  its  purposes,  but  the  product  that 
fashions  and  standardizes  the  man  after  the  form  and 
pattern  of  its  wooden  self,  man's  Mfe  and  purposes  be- 
ing stripped  off  and  cast  aside  as  waste.  The  "man" 
therefore  from  this  point  of  view  is  the  apotheosis  of 
the  tool,  the  instrument  specialized  to  the  point  where 
it  is  instrumental  only  to  itself — a  material  contra- 
diction. It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  tool- 
life  should  have  produced  its  tool-philosophy  and 
have  attempted  to  embrace  the  contradiction  which  it 
is  into  the  scheme  of  the  universe.  Thus  does  the 
tool-philosophy  strangle  itself  in  the  hard  and  cold  life- 
less atmosphere  of  abstract  utility;  it  has  believed  its 
lie  and  is  damned. 

But  this  ideal  of  the  practical  man  does  not  down 
easily  even  after  it  is  choked  out  by  the  logic  of  con- 
tradiction. It,  like  all  falsity,  is  the  truth  when  the 
truth  becomes  dissatisfied  with  its  plain  garment  of 
universal  applicability  and  requires  the  gaudy  color  of 
specific  appliedness.  It  ignores  real  practical  usage  in 
the  interest  of  mere  phenomenal  usefulness;  the  usage 
which  is  organized  into  the  very  core  of  reality  for  the 
merely  apparent  and  superficial  usableness  of  tem- 
porary expediency.  Yet  it  sees  truly  that  man's 
striving,  in  which  his  life  is  most  readily  and  imme- 
diately apparent  and  understandable,  is  the  cord  which 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  269 

connects  him  with  his  sustenance  in  the  mother-uni- 
verse. But  it  does  not  see  that  it  is  the  connection 
which  maintains  the  cord  itself,  and  not  the  cord  that 
maintains  the  connection,  and  that  his  striving  must 
remain  within  the  area  which  this  diameter  lays  out 
for  him;  that  the  mere  abstract  striving  cannot  com- 
pass the  whole  of  his  universe  of  purpose,  and  must 
itself  be  determined  by  characters  of  the  whole  other 
than  itself.  But  there  is  no  need  to  go  into  the  in 
tricacies  of  theory  to  see  the  suicide  of  the  technical 
man.  He  is  destroying  himself  and  the  tools  which 
his  world  requires  in  that  very  striving  by  which  he 
hopes  to  maintain  himself  and  his  world.  It  is  thus 
in  the  facts  of  actual  life  where  this  aspiring  striving 
has  become  a  divisive  and  driving  strife  that  its  false- 
hood is  most  easily  seen. 

Thus,  in  the  world  of  practical  business  which  our 
pseudo-science  has  built  up  for  us  in  the  strife-system 
in  its  perfection,  the  very  demand  for  life  itself  is  con- 
verted into  both  the  tool  to  and  the  justification  of 
universal  destruction.  Under  the  pretense  of  pro- 
ducing goods,  it  has  become  the  great  consumer  and 
destroyer  of  the  good;  therefore,  there  is  no  rule 
whereby  the  values  of  goods  can  be  determined  or  ap- 
portioned to  each  other  or  to  the  ends  of  life.  Its  law 
of  positive  and  active  strife  has  been  the  principle  or 
rule  of  distribution  or  apportionment  by  which  the 
various  values  of  life  are  apportioned  to  the  various 
destroying  whims  of  the  monster-consumer,  the  mon- 
strosity  which   has   itself   been   regarded   as   the   pro- 


270  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

ducing  agent  both  of  goods  and  of  the  good.  The  most 
strictly  organized  and  technical  of  the  aspects  of  the 
strife  process,  advertising,  has  become  the  tool  whereby 
the  life-process  itself  has  been  beguiled  and  betrayed 
into  the  destructive  snare  of  the  strife-system,  and 
there  is,  in  the  business  world,  only  so  much  left  of 
the  life-mind  as  is  necessary  to  destroy  the  conditions 
upon  which  it  itself  rests.  Thus  man  in  the  interest 
of  technical  safety  has  gone  into  the  cave  and  has 
sealed  up  the  entrance.  But  where  no  one  goes  in 
none  either  come  out;  and  the  fancied  goods  we 
thought  to  preserve  are  buried  forever.  Our  so-called 
commercial  system,  then,  instead  of  supplying  us  with 
the  instruments  of  life  which  we  need,  doles  us  out  as 
living  sacrifices  to  the  great  Tool. 

There  is  a  practical  life  that  is  real  and  good  and 
true,  and  that  is  non-instrumental  and  endful  and 
personal  and  of  the  spirit;  that  is  constituted  of  the 
activities  of  real  persons,  in  which  human  ends  find 
their  fulfillment;  and  this  practical  life  is  consistent 
with  the  real  purposes  of  Man. 

Let  us  try  to  make  clear  to  ourselves  this  real  prac- 
tical life — the  life  in  which  ends  are  attained.  We 
have  just  seen  that  to  arrive  at  the  truth  of  this  life 
we  must  strip  away  the  falsity  and  rubbish  of  re- 
spectable superstition  with  which  it  has  been  muddled 
into  our  minds.  It  seems  queer  that  after  preaching 
to  ourselves  for  two  thousand  years  a  real  personal 
philosophy  of  the  good  life  we  have  allowed  ourselves 
to  develop  and  believe  and  act  upon  a  philosophy  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  271 

strife.  And  it  cannot  be  accredited  to  us  if  the  real 
essence  of  the  personalized  spirit  persisted  in  main- 
taining, even  against  the  world  of  tools,  the  body 
through  which  it  sustains  what  of  good  there  may  yet 
be  in  our  world.  So  the  personalized  good  even  now 
persists  as  the  law  and  substance  of  the  good,  and  it 
persists  without  the  help  which  it  should  have  from 
the  intelligence  of  man. 

What,  then,  is  the  form  of  the  good,  and  how  are 
we  to  recognize  it?  How  in  the  welter  and  confusion 
of  tools  can  we  yet  see  the  liuing  person  going  about 
the  maintenance  of  the  good? 

The  problem  is  one  of  analyzing  and  understand- 
ing the  fact.  This  assumes,  of  course,  that  the  facts 
have  not  been  met  squarely  and  honestly  face  to  face, 
but  have  been  manhandled  by  our  twists  of  mind 
through  which  we  have  approached  them.  The  Rob- 
inson Crusoe  theory  of  practical  relations,  taking  it 
for  granted  that  a  man  lives  complete  in  himself  and 
in  his  own  little  circumscribed  world  by  himself  is  but 
the  twist  of  mind  that  makes  our  real  world  unreal. 
Even  under  the  impossible  conditions  of  the  Crusoe 
island  the  description  of  the  relations  of  persons  and 
things  is  false  to  the  facts  it  succeeds  in  seeing,  and 
there  are  many  real  relations  even  in  this  simple 
situation  that  the  description  fails  to  see  at  all.  First 
as  to  the  mistakes  which  this  point  of  view  makes  with 
respect  to  the  facts  which  it  sees.  It  is  true  that  the 
individual  man  holds  some  kind  of  peculiar  claim  on 
the  relations  which  obtain  between  him  and  the  things 


272  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

and  persons  with  which  they  at  the  other  end  con- 
nect. The  individual  can  claim  that  these  relations 
are  his.  and  that  they  proceed  out  of  his  very  being 
as  an  individual.  And  it  is  true  that  to  a  very  im- 
portant extent  he  can  determine  the  thing  or  person 
to  which  these  relations  shall  attach.  If  I  feel  the 
urge  of  generosity  which  leads  me  to  action  it  is  un- 
deniably I  that  feel  it:  and  I  am  aware  that  it  is  out 
my  life  that  the  urge  flows.  And  I  can,  under  limita- 
tion, determine  the  being  upon  whom  the  urge  as  a 
a  practical  fact  shall »fall,  and  can  transfer  its  overt 
expression  along  with  its  inner  trend  from  one  being 
to  another.  It  is  these  and  other  facts  of  similar  sorts 
that  make  up  what  I  can  claim  as  myself;  they  form 
the  center  around  which  those  assurances  which  fur- 
nish me  the  substantiality  upon  which  I  depend  as 
an  active  being  all  converge.  But  this  inward  turn 
of  such  facts  toward  a  central  unity,  while  it  consti- 
tutes perhaps  the  most  important  aspect  of  the  facts. 
in  the  matter  of  the  understanding  oj  the  practical 
life  may.  nay,  must,  be  largely  ignored.  The  practical 
aspects  of  these  facts  of  human  relations  reach  out- 
ward, and  while  they  constitute  the  principle  of  the 
personality,  it  is  not  the  isolated  personality  that  they 
intend,  but  the  personality  as  the  outivard  and  objee- 
t'ree  law  of  human  unity  as  embodied  in  life-insti- 
tutions. 

That  it  is  not  the  inward  reference  of  relations  in 
personal  life  that  constitutes  the  real  practical  char- 
acter is  shown  by  a  few  simple  descriptive  remarks. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  273 

If  I  claim  complete  and  exclusive  interest  in  the  gen- 
erosity which  I  express  toward  another,  then  we 
unanimously  say  that  the  relation  is  not  generosity, 
but  selfishness  in  some  form.  If  I  relieve  a  suffering 
pers'on  just  because  his  suffering  pains  me,  then  we 
say  that  my  action  was  not  really  good  and  generous, 
but  calculated  to  my  own  pleasure  rather  than  to  the 
other  person's  good.  So  if  I  take  too  much  interest 
in  my  actions,  however  good  the  actions  might  in 
themselves  and  otherwise  be,  the  relations  which  I 
thereby  establish  between  myself  and  other  persons 
are  not  real  personal  relations,  not  relations  which 
we  judge  as  right,  but  which  tend  to  prevent  myself 
and  other  persons  from  coming  into  that  agreement 
and  understanding  which  makes  life  human  in  this 
world.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  let  us  consider  the 
case  where  it  is  not  I  that  takes  too  much  interest  in 
my  action,  but  another  person  who  seeks  to  profit  spe- 
cially in  some  way  from  my  action.  If  another  person 
gets  the  benefit  of  my  generosity  and  enjoys  it,  he 
may  not  be  content  to  accept  and  enjoy  my  good-will 
when  it  pleases  me  to  extend  it  to  him,  but  may  set 
about  finding  the  means  to  induce  me  to  extend  him 
generosity.  We  say  then  that  the  relation  is  not  real, 
for  the  other  person  is  trying  to  take  advantage  of  me 
in  his  own  interest.  If  he  can  succeed  in  making  me 
feel  generous  toward  him  at  all  times,  then  I  am  in 
his  power,  he  has  made  a  tool  of  me  and  will  prob- 
ably use  me  consistently  for  his  own  purposes.  This 
is  the  way  that   our  "philanthropists,"  the  most   im- 


274  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

perious  and  irresponsible  of  the  destroyers  of  men, 
attain  the  great  power  which  they  often  wield  in  their 
own  interest.  The  power  is  "merely"  psychological, 
exerted,  that  is,  through  our  own  subjective  feelings 
toward  them,  but  it  is  none  the  less  real  on  that 
account,  and  its  effects  are  not  subjective  nor  psycho- 
logical in  any  sense,  but  sufficiently  objective  to  mean 
annihilation  and  ruin  to  many  a  mind-life. 

So  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  conclusion  that  is 
forced  upon  us  by  all  these  considerations.  It  is  that 
whenever  we  look  upon  a  human  relation  jrom  the 
point  of  view  of  either  of  the  persons  between  which 
it  holds  the  relation  becomes  unreal,  and  shows  "bad" 
traits  in  the  practical  characters  of  the  persons  con- 
cerned. Then  we  have  this  further  striking  result: 
Human  relations  are  not  intelligible  when  interpreted 
in  terms  of  the  persons  involved,  but  must  be  con- 
sidered by  themselves  and  as  if  they  were  real  when 
they  do  not  hold  between  persons  at  all. 

It  is  this  peculiar  quality  among  human  relations 
by  virtue  of  which  they  can  stand  alone  and  be  real 
and  important  even  when  they  are  considered  as  not 
holding  between  human  beings,  that  makes  them  so 
difficult. 

The  essential  fact  of  the  practical  life  is  that  it  is 
constituted  entirely  of  outside  relations  to  and  amon% 
persons  and  things.  When  we  examine  these  rela- 
tions as  flowing  from  the  spontaneity  of  any  person, 
that  person  ceases  to  be  a  true  and  real  person.  In 
the  same   way,   when   we   look   at   practical   relations 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  275 

from  the  point  of  view  at  which  they  impinge  on  a 
person,  that  person  also  loses  his  personality  and  be- 
comes an  unreal  tool.  These  relations  cannot  be 
accounted  for,  then,  by  either  of  the  persons  between 
which  they  hold.  But  they  are  still  personal  rela- 
tions, and  as  such  must  be  regarded  as  real.  Then 
what  can  be  done  except  to  detach  the  relation  from 
the  persons  and  constitute  it  independently  of  its  con- 
nections in  specific  substantial  points? 

There  are  two  ways  out  of  the  difficulty,  and  we 
are  going  to  take  both  of  them.  This  implies,  of 
course,  that  they  will  both  come  out  at  the  same 
place.  One  way  out  is  this:  These  relations  stand 
on  their  own  feet,  are  real  by  themselves,  and  can  be 
described  as  such.  The  other  way  out  is  this:  // 
these  relations  are  personal,  and  do  not  proceed  from 
either  of  the  persons  between  which  they  hold,  then, 
there  must  be  another  person  hidden  somewhere  which 
we  have  not  seen.  Now  since  we  are  on  the  adventure 
we  are  going  farther  into  the  cold  gray.  In  the  con- 
nection with  the  first  way  out  we  are  going  to  say 
that  practical  relations  can  only  be  understood  when 
taken  independently  of  ordinary  natural  persons.  And 
in  connection  with  the  other  way,  we  are  saying  that 
there  is  a  superpersonal  person  involved  in  every 
practical  relation,  whether  that  relation  be  selling  a 
carrot  or  saluting  a  saint..  Or,  negatively,  no  human 
relations  involve  two  persons  only. 

The  job  we  have  on  our  hands  now  is  to  make  clear 
if  we  can  what  these  statements   mean.     The  state- 


270  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

merits  may  be  reduced  to  two:  that  practical  rela- 
tions are  objective  although  personal;  that,  although 
personal,  and  as  personal,  they  belong  to  other  per- 
sons than  those  commonly  recognized. 

With  respect  to  the  first  of  these  propositions, 
almost  enough  has  been  said  already  to  carry  our 
point.  It  has  been  shown  that  when  a  personal  rela- 
tion is  attributed  in  any  special  way  to  either  of  the 
natural  persons  between  which  it  holds,  it  turns  out 
that  the  person  loses  just  those  characters  by  virtue  of 
which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  calling  him  a  person.  It 
reduces  a  natural  object  to  a  conventional  tool.  Not 
only  so,  but  when  the  terms  between  which  the  rela- 
tion holds  lose  their  specific  and  characteristic  qual- 
ity, the  relation  itself  loses  its  peculiar  tying  quality 
as  a  bond  among  facts,  and  becomes  an  abstraction. 
This  shows  that  while  the  relation  is  not  valid  and 
real,  except  in  the  presence  of  persons,  yet,  in  the 
presence  of  persons,  the  persons  lose  their  distinctive 
marks.  The  only  way  out  then  is  to  assume  another 
person.  As  proof  of  these  facts  we  need  only  cite  the 
so-called  economic  relation  as  a  case  where  the  rela- 
tion is  not  only  meaninglessly  abstract,  but  where 
the  persons  involved,  the  "economic  men,"  are  simple 
myths  of  the  economist's  imagination,  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  made  to  show  that  the  relations  involved  in 
such  cases  are  "psychological"  relations.  Or,  a  still 
more  striking  case  is  furnished  by  religion.  Religion 
is  essentially  a  matter  of  personal  relations,  and  such 
in  their  primitive  simplicity  are  very  prominent  in  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  277 

origins  of  all  religions.  It  thus  seems  to  be  of  the 
essence  of  religion  to  lie  close  to  the  inward  intimacy 
of  the  personality,  and  it  is  this  which  gives  it  its 
reality  and  power.  But  when  it  comes,  as  it  always 
does  come,  to  be  interpreted  as  some  form  of  special- 
ized relation  between  one  individual  of  the  finite 
world  and  one  individual  of  the  spiritual  world,  then 
the  relation  takes  on  the  abstractness  of  privacy  and 
invariably  gets  expressed  in  terms  of  the  interests  of 
the  parties  concerned.  So  in  the  Hebrew  religion  the 
first  pure  experience  of  the  religious  sort  was  in  the 
family  tie;  later  it  became  a  matching  of  interests 
between  the  Hebrews  and  their  God  which  got  ex- 
pressed, in  terms  almost  as  crude  as  those  of  a  busi- 
ness contract,  in  the  covenant.  In  the  latter  case  the 
relation  is  a  pure  abstraction,  is  perhaps  recognized 
by -both  parties  as  such,  and  evasion  of  it  through  a 
technicality  which  either  party  could  invent  to  pro- 
tect its  interests  could  very  well  be  regarded  as  right 
and  necessary.  Thus  practical  relations  are  not  inter- 
pretable  in  terms  of  the  persons  between  which  thev 
hold.  When  the  attempt  is  made  thus  to  interpret 
them,  not  only  do  the  persons  concerned  lose  their 
characters,  but  the  relation  itself  ceases  to  be  the 
specific  thing  that  it  must  be  shown  to  be  in  order  to 
serve,  as  it  must  serve,  as  the  basis  of  obligation  and 
right  as  the  standards  of  practical  relations. 

But  this  does  not  prove  practical  relations  objec- 
tive and  self-subsistent  and  able  to  stand  on  their  own 
feet.     This  is  now  what  we  must  literallv  assert  and 


278  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

then  try  to  support  the  statement  by  such  facts  as 
we  can  find.  We  have  then  literally  to  detach  practical 
relations  from  their  supposed  moorings  in  persons, 
and  then  show  that  as  detached  they  are  not  only 
real  but  that  their  detachment  is  the  only  condition 
of  their  reality.  Take  any  simple  case.  I  strike  you 
with  a  stone.  This  relation  has,  as  we  say,  "conse- 
quence." That  is,  something  follows  from  it.  And 
while  we  are  on  practical  grounds,  these  consequences 
are  important.  I  am  taken  into  court  and  the  fact 
that  I  did  strike  you  is  establishel  by  the  evidence. 
Then  the  lawyers  and  the  judge  engage  in  certain 
very  sombre  forms  of  pleasantry  which,  when  reduced 
to  intelligibility,  means  something  like  this:  A  struck 
B  with  a  stone.  Let  this  case  go  unpunished,  and  C 
would  strike  D  and  E  would  strike  F;  then  D  and  F 
would  retaliate  and  would  turn  upon  C  and  E;  that 
is,  there  would  be  a  general  fight.  Xow  fights  are 
useful  in  only  a  few  ways  and  harmful  in  many.  But 
how  do  we  know  this?  Because  we  have  the  records 
of  many  cases  where  A  and  B  have  fought  and  nothing 
good  came  of  it.  We  are  already  changing  our  spe- 
cific case  of  "strike"  into  the  general  idea  of  "fight," 
and  are  implying  that  it  is  indefinitely  repeatable. 
But  this,  it  may  be  said,  only  means  that  we  have  a 
number  of  specific  cases,  and  in  each  the  relation  holds 
between  particular  persons.  So  it  seems  the  fight- 
relation  necessarily  involves  particular  persons.  But 
the  judge  now  reads  the  law  to  the  effect  that  when- 
ever John  Doe,  who  is  the  universal  for  "A,"  strikes 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  279 

Richard  Roe,  who  is  the  universal  for  "B,"  or  if  one 
man  strikes  another — but  the  lawyers  and  judge  have 
forgotten  these  reasons  and  simply  say  "Fighting  is 
prohibited."  So  fighting  is  a  substantial,  practical 
relation  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  persons;  and 
will  therefore  fit  onto  persons  in  all  sorts  of  ways, 
will  change  its  personal  incidence  in  any  way  you 
please,  is  independent  of  the  persons  between  which 
it  holds,  and  stands  on  its  own  feet  as  the  substantial 
object  through  which  life  and  mind  and  human  things 
in  general  are  to  be  understood. 

But  you  say  that  fighting  here  is  a  mere  word  or  a 
mere  "idea";  and  you  say  sagely  that  a  fight  never 
takes  place  except  there  are  people  there  fighting.  To 
which  the  answer  is  that  there  are  "bodies  physical" 
and  "bodies  spirtual"  and  that  the  one  is  not  the 
other.  Even  if  there  are  men  present  fighting  you 
can't  take  the  fight  and  hit  them  on  the  head  with 
it,  of  course  not.  But  neither  can  you  buy  or  sell  or 
steal  or  eat  or  shave  with  the  men's  anger,  even 
though,  if  it  turns  upon  you,  you  had  better  hide  out. 

Thus  do  practical  relations  stand  on  their  own  feet, 
independently  of  the  persons  between  whom,  in  any 
specific  way,  they  hold.  That  is,  they  are  objective 
and  real,  and  have  nothing  to  do  directly  with  states 
of  mind,  or  with  anything  that  is  supposed  to  be 
peculiar  to  the  person.  We  saw  above  that  it  is  pre- 
cisely the  attempt  to  find  the  reality  of  the  person  in 
his  states  of  mind  that  had  to  be  given  up.  And  when 
that  is  given  up  then  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  refer 


280  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

the  practical  relations  in  which  a  person  stands  to 
the  quality  of  his  state  of  mind  as  its  explanation. 
Our  states  of  mind,  so  far  as  their  existence  or  any 
existenial  relations  are  concerned,  are  not  very  impor- 
tant. But  this  is  precisely  the  mistake  that  is  gen- 
erally made.  A  man's  action,  we  ordinarily  say,  is  a 
matter  of  his  "good-will,"  whether  it  is  wise  or  silly, 
or  attended  with  good  or  bad  consequences.  I  might 
on  this  mode  of  explanation  do  the  most  asinine  of 
imaginable  things  and  then  explain  it  on  the  ground 
that  "my  heart  was  right,"  just  as  a  good  intention 
is  supposed  to  justify  or  at  least  excuse  my  crudest 
actions.  But  we  know  this  is  all  nonsense.  You  never 
do  a  thoughtless  thing  and  then  say,  "Excuse  me," 
but  you  feel  that  the  attempted  excuse  merely  added 
insult  to  injury,  and  you  often  feel  contempt  for  the 
other  person  just  because  he  pretends  that  he  does 
excuse  you.  You  would  respect  both  him  and  your- 
self more  if  he  called  you  a  careless  brute  or  an  igno- 
rant ass,  and  if  you  could  take  a  poke  at  his  jaw  you 
could  afterward  shake  hands  with  him  because  you 
felt  that  your  stupid  or  careless  action  had  been  really 
explained  and  the  explanation  genuinely  accepted.  It 
is  then  the  jaw-poke  that  is  real  and  that  realizes  the 
states  of  mind  involved  in  the  situation,  your  anger 
and  contempt  and  resentment  or  whatever  the  internal 
states  may  be  have  taken  on  real  being  only  when 
they  are  collected  and  synthesized  by  the  overt  action- 
form.  The  jaw-poke  as  a  practical  relation  is  real 
in  and  for  itself,  becomes  an  independent  value,  one 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  281 

that  you  can  carry  for  years  with  intent  to  deliver, 
can  lose  and  recover,  and  treat  in  every  way  as  you 
can  any  other  object. 

But  to  come  to  our  second  point.  We  say  that  all 
practical  relations  are  personal.  Then  if  the  persons 
involved  are  not  the  persons  immediately  concerned, 
what  persons  are  involved?  To  this  we  can  say,  the 
persons  mediately  involved.  All  practical  relations 
involve  persons,  and  the  persons  are  neither  of  those 
immediately  concerned;  the  persons  are  then  third 
persons,  and  as  they  are  neither  of  the  "parties  to 
action,"  let  us  call  the  real  person  in  practical  rela- 
tions the  third  neuter. 

We  will  then  have  to  call  this  third  neuter  into 
court  and  have  him  give  an  account  of  himself.  He 
seems  an  important  personage,  and  his  nature  and 
interest  and  connections  in  life  will  be  very  funda- 
mental to  the  understanding  of  real  practical  relations 
which  we  have  undertaken  to  make  clear.  We  shall 
want  to  be  sure  that  our  newcomer  does  not  turn  out 
to  be  a  myth,  and  to  avoid  this  will  be  specially  diffi- 
cult since  most  of  his  real  or  essential  characters  are, 
as  is,  however,  true  of  others  forms,  values,  although 
in  the  interest  of  those  of  us  who  can  think  only  with 
fingers  and  require  solidity  and  resistance  we  shall 
find  that  our  friend  has  a  body  which  can  be  kicked 
as  well  as  a  soul  to  be  saved  or  lost. 

Fortunately,  in  the  discussion  of  the  preceding 
question,  many  of  the  characters  which  we  shall  find 
to   be   unified   in   this  personality   appeared    there   as 


282  THE  LIFE  OF  MIX!) 

abstract  and  isolated  qualities — qualities  that  appeared 
in  that  connection  abstract  precisely  because  the  per- 
son in  whom  they  essentially  inhere  did  not  appear 
to  claim  them.  It  is  now  our  business  to  get  acquainted 
with  this  personage  as  fully  as  we  can. 

We  may  begin  with  those  qualities  which  appeared 
in  our  previous  negative  discussion  as  abstract,  or 
without  any  apparent  substantial  body  with  which  to 
connect.  Recall  that  in  a  simple  case  involving  prac- 
tical relations  or  conduct,  as  when  two  persons  have 
a  difficulty  that  takes  them  to  court,  we  found  it 
necessary  to  speak  of  law,  right,  justice,  etc.,  and  of 
certain  guarantees  which  the  court  puts  into  effect  to 
prevent  a  recurrence  of  similar  difficulties.  These 
guarantees  are  in  court  practice  mainly  what  are  called 
punishments.  When  John  Doe  hits  Richard  Roe  on 
the  head  without  provocation  or  excuse,  and  thus  les- 
sens his  chance  as  a  bread  winner  or  enjoyer  of  his 
goods,  the  court  fines  John  or  sends  him  to  jail  or 
inflicts  other  pains  on  him.  So  that  we  have  a  very 
large  and  complex  system  of  qualities  which  when 
named  as  things  we  call  right,  wrong,  justice,  punish- 
ment, etc.,  and  the  difficulty  comes  when  we  attempt 
to  find  the  being  or  beings  to  which  these  qualities 
belong.  We  may  say  for  certain  purposes  that  ab- 
stract right,  abstract  justice,  or  law  demands  that 
John  be  made  to  suffer  pains  for  the  pains  he  has 
inflicted  upon  Richard.  But  when  we  use  such  lan- 
guage we  should  remember  that  abstract  things  really 
make  no  demands,  and   if  our  statement   is  to  mean 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  283 

anything  we  have  to  find  out  in  whose  name  law  and 
justice  demand  that  this  or  that  should  be  done. 
There  are  several  answers  as  to  what  in  reality  it  is 
that  really  justifies  the  demands  that  the  law  makes, 
and  some  of  them  are  worth  our  turning  our  attention 
to  at  this  point. 

The  judge  who  sits  on  the  bench  and  is  busy  with 
all  sorts  of  troubles  that  are  brought  to  him  for  solu- 
tion will  perhaps  tell  us  that  it  is  the  law  as  such 
that  is  to  be  satisfied  in  such  cases.  So  he  is  likely 
to  fall  into  the  habit  of  merely  ascertaining  the  facts 
and  then  looking  up  a  statement  in  his  law  books  as 
to  what  is  to  be  done  in  such  cases.  It  is  for  him 
merely  a  case  of  "the  law  and  the  evidence,"  and  if 
the  law  says  so  much  fine  and  so  much  time,  he  says 
"Ten  dollars  and  ten  days"  and  the  way  of  the  trans- 
gressor is  made  straight  to  the  jail.  Hut  people  who 
sometimes  think,  I  mean  people  who  are  not  learned 
in  the  law,  may  raise  questions  as  to  the  justness  of 
the  law  itself;  so  that  when  our  judge  goes  to  the  bar 
association  he  has  to  make  a  speech  justifying  the  law. 
Here  he  probably  says  that  peace  and  order  are  the 
objects  of  the  law,  which  means  that  the  law  demands 
the  infliction  of  punishments  in  the  name  of  peace  and 
order.  If  it  is  objected  that  peace  and  order  are  ab- 
stractions and  thus  make  no  demands  that  human 
beings  can  be  expected  to  respect  (there  are  people 
who  are  just  that  obstinate)  then  it  is  explained  that 
human  beings  cannot  follow  their  callings  and  interests 
unless  there  is  some  degree  of  peace  and  order  assured. 


284  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

But  then  the  contentious  objector  asks  if  people,  indi- 
vidual persons,  and  their  interests,  represent  the  object 
in  whose  name  the  law  speaks;  then  it  begins  to  look 
as  if  the  advocate  of  the  law  was  standing  for  privilege 
if  he  names  any  particular  persons  or  classes  of  per- 
sons as  those  in  whose  interest  the  law  makes  its 
demands.  Finally  the  justifier  of  the  law  will  be 
obliged  to  say  that  the  law  speaks  not  in  the  name 
of  any  persons,  but  in  the  name  of  the  community, 
its  peace,  prosperity,  culture,  welfare,  and  mainte- 
nance. 

This  answer  is  probably  final  and  therefore  right. 
Perhaps  everybody  will  agree  that  the  community,  as 
the  guarantor  of  men's  practical  interests,  as  the  basis 
of  their  practical  character,  and  as  thus  the  condition 
of  their  progress  in  the  life  of  the  mind,  is  the  final 
explanation  of  all  those  affairs  we  call  public.  Law, 
right,  justice,  peace,  order,  welfare,  prosperity — all 
these  are  qualities  that  belong  to  the  community  as 
the  public  body.  But  we  said  above  that  such  quali- 
ties are  personal,  were  just  the  qualities  that  charac- 
terize persons.  Then  is  the  community  a  person? 
And  is  it  the  third  neuter  which  we  said  is  a  party 
at  interest  in  all  the  activities  of  the  practical  char- 
acter? Xonesense,  you  say.  But  let  us  go  on  with 
the  story. 

We  agreed  that  the  interests  protected  by  law  are 
not  in  the  last  resort  the  interests  of  particular  per- 
sons as  human  beings.  The  law  does  not,  cannot, 
speak  in  their  name  in  any  special  way.     But  the  law 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  285 

represents  human  purposes,  therefore  the  interests  of 
human  personalities.  Now  who  or  what  are  these 
personalities?  It  would  seem  that  we  are  obliged  to 
name  the  community  as  the  ultimate  person,  and  some- 
thing like  that  we  shall  probably  have  to  do. 

But  there  are  several  characters  that  belong  to 
communities  which  seem  to  preclude  our  calling  them 
persons.  To  name  only  one,  the  parts  or  organs  of 
the  community  are  often  not  so  closely  co-ordinated, 
either  structurally  or  functionally,  as  the  parts  of  the 
personalities  we  know  as  human  beings.  But  this 
objection  can  probably  be  overcome.  We  shall  not 
argue  it.  Again,  there  are  several  aspects  or  features 
that  belong  to  persons  that  can  hardly  be  said  to  be 
elements  of  a  community.  For  instance,  the  person 
has  a  distinct  mind  of  his  own,  while  the  community, 
presumably,  has  none.  Such  arguments  as  these  are 
the  bones  of  contention  for  people  who  like  abstract 
argumentation.  But  we  are  interested  in  description, 
and  shall  ignore  them  almost  completely. 

Let  us,  then,  for  the  sake  of  making  our  description 
less  objectionable  to  those  who  might  be  inclined  to 
throw  up  the  sponge,  say  that  the  community  is  per- 
haps not  a  person,  but  that  it  discloses  a  personal 
organization  and  this  organization  is  mantained  by  a 
personal  principle.  Then,  whether  it  is  a  person  or 
not,  most  aspects  of  its  being  are  at  least  personal. 

But  how  do  such  statements  mean  anything?  To 
answer  this  question  let  us  go  back  to  certain  aspects 
of  the  life  of  imagination  as  we  described   them   in 


286  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

previous  sections.  We  found  that  the  distinctive  thing 
about  the  life  of  the  mind  as  imagination  was  that 
it  invariably  objectifies  itself.  By  that  we  meant  that 
every  act  of  the  mind-life  creates,  or  tends  to  create, 
for  itself  a  body  in  which  it  attempts  to  make  itself 
permanent.  Fermanence,  you  remember,  we  described 
in  terms  both  of  material  impermeability  and  of  moral 
dependability.  Now,  to  apply  these  conceptions  here, 
those  qualities  which  we  call  right,  justice,  etc.,  as 
personal  qualities  are  aspects  of  the  life  of  mind,  and 
as  such  are  creative,  and  thus  they  attempt  to  create, 
and  do  create,  for  themselves  a  body  in  which  they 
give  themselves  enduring  permanence  and  that  moral 
substantiality  which  gives  to  the  mind-life  its  hope 
of  significant  continuity.  Each  of  these  essentially 
human,  and  therefore  personal,  qualities  creates  its 
own  appropriate  objective  form,  embodies  itself  as 
soul  in  this  form,  and  thus  helps  to  make  the  endur- 
ing realities  of  life.  Or,  these  bodies  become  ensouled 
with  the  realities  of  enduring  life. 

These  embodied  souls  of  the  mind-life  we  call 
institutions. 

When  therefore  John  Doe  becomes  fractious  and 
violates  the  law,  the  law  can  and  does  demand  in  its 
own  name  that  some  corrective  measures  be  taken. 
But  it  does  not  demand  retribution  or  correction  in 
its  own  name  alone,  because  it  is  the  institution  in 
which  the  human  purpose  to  guarantee  the  rights  of 
all  institutions  is  embodied;  so  it,  in  speaking  for 
right  and  justice,  is  merely  performing  the  specialized 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  287 

function  which  life  has  delegated  to  it.  It  is  the 
personal  agent  through  which  all  other  personal  beings 
are  guaranteed  the  opportunity  to  live  their  appro- 
priate lives.  As  one  of  those  agencies,  it  does  speak 
for  itself  and  in  its  own  name.  But  when  it  under- 
takes to  demand  justice  in  its  own  name  alone,  it 
ceases  to  act  as  a  personal  agent,  and  becomes  the 
advocate  of  private  interest,  and  as  such  is  itself 
divested  of  its  appropriate  soul  and  begins  to  live  the 
subjective  life  of  the  body. 

The  law,  then,  as  an  embodied  center  of  the  prac- 
tical life,  is  a  person,  has  the  fundamental  personal 
characteristics.  As  the  embodied  will  to  justice,  etc., 
it  has  the  corporate  character,  is  the  corporate  per- 
sonality, the  corporate  practical  character.  It  cannot, 
as  objective  and  universal,  be  made  the  instrument  or 
tool  of  any  private  person,  and  when  any  person 
appeals  to  the  law  for  the  definition  and  establish- 
ment of  his  rights,  he  asks  these  things  in  the  interest 
of  the  mind-life,  otherwise  his  request  has  no  claim 
to  the  respect  of  other  persons  and  the  law  will  not 
hear  it.  There  is  no  private  right;  right  is  universal 
and  personal  or  it  is  interest,  which  is  not  right.  Thus 
we  see  that  law  as  a  person  has  institutional  char- 
acter in  both  body  and  soul,  the  two  essential  features 
of  mind  which  gives  to  mind  its  uniqueness  as  end ful 
continuity.  Impersonal  things  are  discontinuous;  pri- 
vacy or  specialization  is  discontinuous  and  impersonal 
and  unreal;  as  active  unreality  it  is  dispersive,  and 
thus  the  father  of  strife.    Law  is  personal  as  embodied 


288  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

mind  as  order;  it  is  the  soul  of  active  continuity  em- 
bodied in  permanence  and  peace. 

A  similar  account  holds  of  all  the  other  human  real 
qualities.  Each  of  them  has  its  appropriate  personal- 
ization in  a  permanent  institution.  This  describes  their 
internal  constitution;  as  appropriate  to  each  other 
in  the  unit  of  life  they  are  the  community.  It  now 
appears  why  we  could  ignore  the  question  of  the  per- 
sonality of  the  community.  As  the  corporate  whole 
of  life,  the  community  argues  its  own  case. 

It  is  a  result  something  like  this  that  the  psychol- 
ogists, when  they  become  sociologists,  have  in  mind. 
They  vaguely  feel  (their  consciousness  of  the  situation 
has  not  yet  risen  to  the  cognitive  status)  the  presence 
and  the  effects  of  the  genius  of  the  life  of  mind  as  it 
expresses  itself  in  human  activities,  especially  in  those 
higher  forms  of  activity  commonly  called  cultural. 
As  the  ultimate  moral  Praxis  pervading  the  human 
universe  and  charging  it  with  life,  its  presence  has 
always  been  felt  by  religious  and  aesthetic  natures. 
It  has  been  recognized  therefore  by  the  major  capaci- 
ties of  men  in  all  the  essential  forms  which  their  life 
takes  on;  in  art  and  religion  and  politics  it  has  been 
accepted  as  the  great  ultimate  Fact,  by  each  of  these 
according  to  its  lights  and  the  necessities  which  their 
purposive  natures  have  in  the  different  cases  imposed 
on  its  objectification.  Each  human  major  interest, 
that  is,  objectifies  the  Fact  after  its  own  image;  and, 
until  the  development  of  the  false  concpetion  of  pri- 
vacy bv  modern  individualism  under  the  influence  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  289 

perverted  Christianity,  these  different  objects  appro- 
priated themselves  to  each  other  in  the  harmony  of 
a  complete  tolerance.  But  this  usurpation  of  exclu- 
sive private  right  as  asserted  by  modern  science,  whose 
method  is  the  technique  of  individualism  and  there- 
fore false,  has  picked  the  great  Fact  to  pieces  and 
mutilated  it  beyond  recognition.  As  the  Patria  of 
politics,  the  God  of  religion,  the  Good  of  morality, 
the  Beauty  of  art,  the  great  Pan  Praxis  has  had  to 
abdicate  in  favor  of  such  mythical  mongrels  as  "equal- 
ity" in  politics,  blind  will  in  relgion,  utility  in  moral- 
ity, impressionism  in  art — all  of  these  "scientific  cate- 
gories" being  nothing  more  than  the  fragmentary 
views  gained  by  privacy  as  the  latter  changes  its 
whim.  These  concepts  represent,  therefore,  as  "mind," 
mere  dismembered  remnants  of  the  whole  Fact  Praxis, 
and  once  the  great  Person  is  torn  limb  from  limb, 
all  the  king's  horses  and  all  the  king's  men  can  never 
succeed  in  getting  back  together  again  in  a  living  form 
the  personality  thus  violated.  Science,  even  as  sociol- 
ogy, can  do  great  things;  but  it  stops  short  of  the 
greatest  of  things. 

What  we  want  to  insist  on  is,  the  great  fact  life  as 
humanty  lives  it.  Until  we  learn  to  view  it  as  a  whole 
whose  essential  feature  is  unity  and  order  and  not 
multiplicity  and  complexity,  this  life,  although  the 
most  immediate  of  facts,  and  because  it  is  the  most 
immediate  of  farts,  will  continue  to  be  the  baffling 
mystery  it  is  for  science  now.  The  scientific  approach 
through   the   method   of   reduction   to  simplicity,   the 


290  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

eternal  vain  search  for  the  microcosm  in  a  presup- 
posed infinity  of  essentially  worldless  abstractions,  is 
defeated  at  the  outset  because  of  its  neglect  to  get 
the  artist's  distant  and  whole  view.  The  real  simple 
is  not  the  homogeneous  but  the  unified;  and  the  uni- 
fied is  not  apprehended  through  a  summation  or  sum- 
mary of  its  disunited  parts,  but  its  unity  is  mediated 
through  the  comprehension  of  the  principle  by  virtue 
of  which  the  elements  become  parts.  These  parts 
are  themselves  not  recurrent  atoms  as  science  would 
have  them,  but  self-restitutive  wholes  of  life,  and  the 
appropriation  to  each  other  of  a  system  of  such  wholes 
constitutes  our  human  world.  Politcs,  religion,  art, 
science,  are  features  of  that  human  world;  and  it  is 
through  the  world  as  a  principle  that  they  are  to  be 
adequately  known.  They  are  then  institutions,  and 
as  such  are  the  law  of  the  mind-life  as  the  great  Fact. 
The  mutual  appropriation  of  these  forms  to  each 
other  and  the  apprehension  of  them  as  life-content, 
as  the  very  stuff  of  the  experience  of  living,  is  what 
is  called  culture.  We  must  turn  now  to  this  continua- 
tion of  the  corporate  life  into  the  form  in  which  its 
fundamental   values  are  created — the  life  of  culture. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

(ill)     THE   CULTURAL  LIFE  AS   IDEAL. 

So  long  as  we  think  of  the  life  of  man  as  lived  in 
the  various  individuals  who  make  up  the  species,  no 
consistent  account  of  those  delicate  refinements  of 
living  which  we  call  culture  is  possible.  Refinement 
and  delicacy  only  come  into  life  after  the  elaborate 
structures  which  stand  as  the  embodiments  of  the 
interrelations  of  persons  becomes  solidly  established 
as  institutions.  If  we  insist  on  looking  at  culture 
from  the  point  of  view  of  its  origins  or  causes  we  may 
say  that  the  mere  facts  of  personal  interdependence 
and  of  mutually  directed  activity  of  the  various  life 
centers,  embody  themselves  in  substances  which,  to 
use  a  far-fetched  figure,  are  hard  and  permanent 
enough  to  take  a  high  polish.  In  any  case  the  higher 
aspects  of  culture  rest  upon  the  solidity  and  depend- 
ability of  the  order  of  life-systems,  and  upon  the 
quality  of  their  textures  as  thus  constituted.  The 
question  of  the  nature  of  culture  is  difficult;  the  dis- 
cussion must  avoid  on  the  one  side  the  assumption  of 
a  culture  that  is  so  delicate  and  frail  that  it  is  in 
danger  of  being  shattered  by  the  first  harsh  wind  from 
nature,  and  on  the  other  it  must  avoid  the  portrayal 
of  it  as  so  rock-ribbed  and  sturdy  as  to  lose  its  grace 
and  attractiveness  because  of  the  gaunt  and  steely 
firmness  of  its  chill  strength.     On  the  one  hand,  cul- 


292  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

ture  must  mean  the  finer  graces  and  loveliness  of  the 
light  and  airy  contacts  between  purposes  only  as  yet 
incompletely  embodied,  contacts  between  purposes 
which  quiver  to  the  suggestiveness  of  the  slightest  of 
embraces  from  strength  and  firmness,  whose  sensi- 
tivty  leaves  them  endangered  by  a  too  rude  shock 
toward  substantiation— the  raw  plasma  of  values 
which  if  forced  into  form  too  early  or  too  harshly 
lacerate  and  leave  a  wound  from  which  the  blood  of 
life  will  quickly  escape.  It  must  mean,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  stiff  hardihood  and  vigorous  rigidity  which 
alone  can  give  to  these  delicate  life-forms  the  urge 
to  endure  and  the  self-sufficing  courage  which  enables 
them  to  endure,  and  thus  to  determine  the  form  of 
permanence  in  which  the  spirit  of  continuity  can  alone 
survive.  Culture  must  then  be  thought  of  not  merely 
as  the  daintiness  and  perfumed  colorfulness  of  experi- 
ence in  its  most  unsubstantial  and  fleeting  moments, 
but  also  as  the  rugged  stability  and  resistent  persist- 
ence of  the  framework  upon  which  the  lighter  aspects 
of  experience  depend. 

These  two  aspects  of  culture  are  the  two  primary 
value-systems  created  by  the  dual  effectiveness  of  the 
mind-life.  That  effectiveness  comes  into  actuality  in 
two  forms,  its  permanent  aspects  contrivng  themselves 
into  the  institutions  of  life  properly  so-called,  and  its 
active  features  asserting  themselves  to  embodiment  as 
the  inner  formative  idea. 

Our  problem  therefore  now  formulates  itself  as  that 
of  explaining  how  the  formative  idea  as  the  purposive 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIXD  293 

aspect  of  mind-life  conspires  with  what  is  not  itself 
in  order  to  perpetuate  itself,  and  how  the  more  or 
less  coarsened  permanence  develops  the  grace  to  enable 
it  to  support  and  carry  the  tender  spirit  to  its  full 
embodiment.  We  have  thus  to  describe  institutions 
in  their  two  types  of  capacity,  the  one  as  the  creative 
growth  force  and  the  other  as  the  created  body — the 
support  of  the  growth-idea. 

With  the  problem  thus  stated,  it  is  largely  a  matter 
of  showing  how  the  three  typical  aspects  of  mental 
capacity  co-operate  in  the  creation  of  a  whole-of-life. 
By  this  whole-of-life  we  do  not  mean  the  sentimental 
"soul  at  one  with  itself"  in  the  sence  that  there  should 
be  an  individual  all  of  whose  subjective  feelings  were 
consistent  or  got  on  together  amicably.  It  does  mean, 
of  course,  that  there  will  be  a  subjective  or  internal 
harmony  of  the  individual's  characteristic  mental 
states,  but  it  means  much  more  than  that.  It  implies 
in  addition  to  the  subjective  harmony,  which  is 
assumed  to  exist  not  merely  in  select  individuals  but 
primarily  in  classes  of  individuals  where  it  subsists  in 
each  after  its  own  kind,  a  harmony  in  order  and  organ- 
ization in  the  world  of  objective  fact,  in  the  environ- 
mental facts  which  are  outside  of  and  peripheral  to 
mental  states.  But  it  involves  also  more  than  these 
two  aspects  of  the  wholeness  of  life.  There  is  yet 
to  be  enumerated  the  third  and  most  important  factor, 
those  further  elements  of  unity  which  interlock  the 
subjective  and  the  objective  worlds  together  in  a  total 
harmony.     Considering  these  facts  from  the  point  of 


294  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

view  of  the  mental  capacities  involved  most  directly 
in  their  creation,  the  order  of  the  subjective  world  is 
a  matter  largely  of  feeling-will;  that  of  the  objective 
world,  one  of  perception-cognition;  and  that  of  the 
whole  a  function  of  the  emotive-imagination.  But  in 
any  case  the  life  of  culture  is  that  phase  of  the  mind- 
life  in  which  harmony  of  all  its  factors  is  consciously 
the  objective,  this  harmony  implying  the  relation  of 
the  human  aspects  of  life  with  the  distinctly  natural 
in  a  unity  of  the  universe. 

As  a  cultural  problem  the  question  of  attaining 
harmony  in  the  inner  mental  condition  is  a  question 
of  self-culture.  But  the  one  thing  we  want  to  be  sure 
about  first  is  that  self-culture  is  not  a  matter  of  deceiv- 
ing our  selves  by  continually  jacking-up  some  par- 
ticular sort  of  feeling  and  trying  to  maintain  it  indefi- 
nitely. Culture,  neither  self-culture  nor  any  other, 
is  a  matter  of  the  existence  or  presence  of  a  particular 
type  or  state  of  mind,  nor  is  it  a  question  primarily 
of  the  persistence  of  a  prevailing  type  of  state  of  mind. 
If  the  mere  presence  of  an  exalted  and  beautiful  feel- 
ing constituted  one  a  cultured  person,  then  it  would 
be  quite  simply  attained  with  a  few  drinks  of  good 
whiskey  or  appropriate  doses  of  other  drugs.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  the  tremendous  hold  which  drugs 
have  on  certain  types  of  temperament  is  due  to  the 
very  rare  states  of  feeling  and  the  interesting  ideas 
which  follow  upon  its  use.  It  means  perhaps  that 
people  who  drink  do  so  not  to  drown  their  sensibility, 
but  to  heighten  it  and  sharpen  it  to  the  point  where 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  295 

the  harsh  and  crude  realities  are  made  to  give  way 
to  the  more  elevated  types.  Consequently,  the  drink 
habit  is  not  due  to  moral  perversity  or  low  and  de- 
graded sentiments,  but  more  often  to  the  pain  and 
discomfort  which  a  highly  sensitive  person  experi- 
ences in  the  presence  of  the  coarse  crudity  of  the  ordi- 
nary facts  and  conditions  of  life.  If  this  be  true,  it 
is  obvious  that  mere  preaching  to  the  erring  individual 
means  that  the  preacher  is  of  a  lower  type  of  sensi- 
bility than  the  drunkard,  and  that  both  of  them  are 
deceived  by  the  same  fallacy  that  culture  and  goodness 
and  righteousness  are  merely  states  of  mind.  But  it  is 
true  also  that  if  the  question  is  one  of  degress  of  sensi- 
tivity and  the  crudities  of  outward  life,  the  important 
principle  in  the  propagation  of  culture,  even  in  the 
subjective  aspects  of  self-culture,  is  that  the  way  to 
culture  is  through  the  control  of  the  objective  circum- 
stances of  the  life  which  we  hope  to  cultivate. 

Then  if  self-culture  is  not  a  matter  of  whooping-up 
cur  subjective  states,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  just  that 
is  what  culture  means  to  nearly  everybody,  then  what 
is  it?  I  say  that  if  we  will  not  believe  that  all  cul- 
ture is  merely  a  matter  of  stimulating  our  egotism 
with  one  sort  and  another  of  hocus  pocus  we  are  going 
contrary  to  the  prevailing  tendencies  of  western  civili- 
zation. If  there  is  one  prevailingly  universal  attitude 
(there  are  no  longer  any  convictions)  among  people 
of  contemporary  times,  it  is  to  the  effect  that  the 
individual's  destiny  (and  it  is  assumed  that  that  is 
the  only  possible  destiny)  is  a  matter  of  the  states  of 


296  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

mind  which  he  can  himself  bring  into  presence  in  his 
consciousness;  more,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  the  quality 
or  meaning  of  these  states,  but  one  merely  of  their 
persistence  and  intensity  and  exclusiveness  and  pri- 
vacy. This  is,  of  course,  a  rather  sweeping  charge. 
But  let  us  notice  only  for  a  moment  a  few  illustra- 
tions. And  begin  with  the  most  respectable  and  in-, 
sidious  form  of  the  superstition.  It  is  a  perverted 
after-effect  of  the  cultural  development  of  early  mod- 
ern times,  and  takes  its  higher  forms  in  the  philosophy 
of  egotism  and  the  literature  of  romanticism.  Xo 
doubt  the  whole  movement  served  the  very  useful  and 
worthy  purpose  of  cultivating  self-respect  and  self- 
confidence  in  the  peoples  of  the  western  world  after 
their  debauch  in  Oriental  self-denunciation  under  the 
influence  of  the  church.  Western  peoples  went  through 
the  middle  ages  on  their  knees  and  their  bellies  ab- 
jectly in  the  mire  of  barbaric  superstition.  But  when 
they  arose  out  of  the  mud  they  went  to  the  opposite 
extreme  of  chestiness  and  cockiness  which,  while  it  has 
given  us  the  fruits  of  individualism,  has  also  afflicted 
us  with  the  blights  and  cankers  of  individualism.  And 
it  is  this  briskety  perpendicularity  and  bumptious- 
ness which  has  remained  to  us,  and  we  take  it  as 
uprightness  and  righteousness.  But  as  a  literature 
and  a  philosophy  it  served  useful  purposes  in  that  it 
was  to  the  spiritual  and  cultural  aspects  of  the  per- 
sonal life  to  which  in  the  main  it  so  boisterously  called 
attention.  , 

The  respectability  of  spiritual  egotism,  while  of  un- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  297 

questioned  cultural  value,  was  nevertheless  soon  lost, 
and  the  energy  and  interest  it  represented  was  soon 
transferred  to  the  natural  individual.  We  do  not  need 
to  go  into  these  matters  in  detail.  It  will  suffice  now 
to  give  illustrations  of  the  philosophy  that  self-culture 
is  a  matter  of  anyhow  inducing  states  of  mind  in  the 
individual  by  auto-suggestion  and  the  other  methods 
of  magic  which  individualism  has  prepared  for  us. 
Of  this  thing  most  any  religion  of  the  present,  in  that 
it  puts  the  emphasis  upon  the  "assurance"  of  per- 
sonal salvation,  is  a  good  example. 

Thus  their  self-assurance  becomes  expert  in  inter- 
pretation of  holy  writ  as  showing  that  it  is  the  pur- 
pose of  charity  to  cover  a  multitude  of  sins.  This  is 
probably  the  reason  for  the  necessity  for  the  continu- 
ous extension  of  the  scope  of  charity;  the  ''needy"  are 
not  the  poor  in  the  means  to  life,  but  the  poor  and 
crass  in  spirit  who  need  the  mantle  of  charity  to  cover 
the  rotten  corpulence  of  their  bloated  self-assurance. 
But  this  situation  is  not  peculiar  to  religion,  and  what 
men  do  in  religion  is  merely  what  they  have  learned 
to  do  elsewhere. 

Other  instances  are  still  more  striking  and  even  more 
contemptibly  immoral.  The  extremes  to  which  the 
"go-getter"  type  of  efficiency  expert  carries  his  "self- 
culture"  in  such  relations  as  high-pressure  salesman- 
ship result  merely  in  the  transformation  of  his  own 
sensibility  to  the  point  where  he  is  oblivious  of  any 
of  the  characteristically  human  motives.  When  he 
bull-heads  his  victim  into  giving  him  an  order  he  as- 


298  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

sures  himself  that  his  "success"  was  all  due  to  his  own 
self-command  and  the  other  "executive"  abilities  with 
which  he  is  so  liberally  endowed,  which  he  has  not  by 
nature,  but  by  his  own  persistent  efforts.  He  is 
right;  he  does  not  have  these  capacities  by  nature; 
nature  is  more  kindly  even  with  the  brute,  and  on  oc- 
casion will  make  the  brute  sicken  at  the  sight  of  blood; 
and  the  brute  has  the  capacity  to  know  that  blood  is 
being  shed  even  though  it  is  not  visible.  Our  go-get- 
ler  has,  it  is  true,  a  tremendous  capacity — for  belief 
in  his  own  capacity.  And  it  is  unfortunate  that  this 
type  is  becoming  fairly  common  in  business  affairs, 
and  it  would  almost  appear  that  this  is  the  type  that 
business  is  consciously  trying  to  produce,  if  they  are 
sincere  in  their  advertising  methods.  But  it  should 
be  kept  in  mind  that  by  the  development  of  such  states 
in  an  individual  by  his  own  suggestion,  the  individual 
is  not  developing  anything  remotely  resembling  either 
culture  or  capacity,  but  is  merely  allowing  his  acquisi- 
tive instincts  to  drown  his  more  refined  sentiments. 
And  the  result  too  often  is  that  the  individual  thus 
brutalized  becomes  incapable  of  apprehending  any  cul- 
tural qualities  whatever,  so  that  the  life  of  leisure  and 
enjoyment  for  him  becomes  degraded  to  the  series  of 
sense-thrills  which  he  can  get  only  by  continuously  in- 
creasing the  intensity  of  the  stimulus,  with  the  final 
result  that  in  order  to  get  any  reaction  of  pleasure  at 
all  he  must  resort  to  brutish  excess. 

But  let  us  leave  this  desolate  subject.     Our  prac- 
tical  system   which   is   founded   upon   selfishness   ac- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  299 

cepted  as  the  rule  of  right  (we  call  it  self-help,  self- 
confidence,  self-respect,  all  of  which  are  the  blessings 
of  our  principle  of  competition)  is  contradictory  in  its 
own  principles  of  constitution,  and  will  wreck  civiliza- 
tion if  it  is  not  reorganized  on  sounder  principles  be- 
fore the  canker  eats  further  into  its  vitals.  It  has  given 
us  the  self-confident,  overbearing,  arrogant,  self-made, 
efficient,  brute;  it  in  him  has  its  reward.  It  ought  to 
be  evident  to  anyone  who  thinks  at  all,  and  it  would 
be  generally  evident  if  there  were  many  who  think, 
that  the  cultural  life  is  not  a  matter  of  self-culture 
in  any  sense  in  which  it  can  be  interpreted.  The  self 
is  not  the  center  of  our  practical  world. 

But  there  is  still  the  possibility  that  we  can  continue 
to  hold  to  our  egotistical  principle.  It  seems  that  if 
we  will  just  explain  that  by  self-culture  we  mean  the 
cultivation  in  ourselves  of  interests  in  the  refined  types 
of  purpose,  we  can  still  look  upon  culture  as  being  es- 
sentially self-culture.  For,  are  not  we  limited,  so  far 
as  ideas  and  purposes  go,  to  our  own  ideas  and  pur- 
poses? And  do  we  not  have  our  own  minds,  and  know 
them  better  than  anyone  else's?  Besides,  when  I  be- 
gin to  take  an  interest  in  the  other  fellow,  is  there  not 
always  danger  that  I  will  try,  perhaps  unconsciously, 
to  use  him  for  my  own  purposes?  The  answer  to  all 
these  questions  is  that  they  are  ambiguous,  and  that 
we  unconsciously  take  advantage  of  their  ambiguity 
in  our  own  interests.  We  know,  that  is,  that  there  is 
a  certain  self-evident  truth  implied  in  each  of  these 
questions.     The  difficulty  is  that  we  do  not   take  the 


300  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

trouble  to  find  out  just  what  is  the  truth  implied,  and 
consequently  give  them  the  wrong  interpretation.  The 
truth  is,  we  are  not  limited  to  our  own  ideas  and  pur- 
poses, which  we  know  very  well  if  we  have  ever,  for 
instance,  lived  in  an  ordinary  family.  We  know  in 
these  cases  at  least  of  family  co-operation,  that  ideas 
are  common  to  groups  of  people,  and  a  common  pur- 
pose is  ordinarily  what  leads  to  the  formation  of  many 
sorts  of  groups.  We  know,  further,  that  the  degree 
to  which  a  person  can  and  does  enter  into  sympathetic 
relations  and  arrangements  with  groups  of  people  is 
the  final  test  of  his  culture  and  his  character.  So  the 
statement  that  we  must  necessarily  be  limited  to  our 
own  ideas  is  nonsense,  which  we  never  examine  into 
because  of  the  self-conscious  fear  that  it  would  turn 
out  to  be  false  if  we  saw  clearly  what  it  means. 

In  the  same  way  it  is  easy  to  show  that  the  state- 
ment that  we  know  our  own  mind,  and  know  it  bet- 
ter than  other  people  know  it,  is  equally  ambiguous 
and  in  the  last  analysis  false.  We  know  very  well 
that  the  things  we  know  best  about  other  people's 
minds  is  what  we  conjecture  from  their  behavior  or 
their  habitual  modes  of  action.  We  seem  to  know  our 
own  minds  directly;  and  we  do.  But  the  important 
things  I  know  about  my  mind  are  always  made  known 
to  me  as  a  result  of  inferences  from  other  facts.  Thus 
I  say  that  I  am  convinced  of  the  truth  of  a  given 
statement.  But  if  when  asked  how  I  know  it  I  merely 
say  "I  just  know  it,"  you  are  doubtful  whether  I 
really  know  it,  and  you  are  convinced  that  I  know 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  301 

what  is  in  my  own  mind  only  when  I  can  give  rea- 
sons which  are  not  merely  in  my  mind,  but  are  in 
yours  at  the  same  time  and  in  exactly  the  same  sense. 
The  fact  is  that  except  in  the  case  of  what  is  merely 
now  present,  if  you  are  reasonably  well  trained  you 
know  my  mind  better  than  I  do,  and  better  than  you 
know  your  own.  How  many  times  have  you  heard 
somebody  say  that  he  was  undecided  as  to  what  he 
would  do  in. a  given  case,  say,  as  to  how  he  would 
vote,  when  you  knew  exactly  what  he  would  do,  and 
could  have  told  him?  He  sincerely  believes  that  he 
does  not  know  his  own  mind,  and  in  fact  does  not 
know  it,  when  you  have  no  doubt  at  all  as  to  what  is 
going  on  in  his  mind.  If  he  has  been  a  consistent 
Republican  for  a  long  time  he  will  be  offended  and 
think  of  refusing  to  vote  the  ticket  when  the  party 
candidate  does  not  suit  him;  he  will  reflect  long  and 
seriously  and  even  take  counsel  with  his  friends  to 
prove  the  candidate  bad  and  wicked — and  then  vote 
the  ticket  straight  as  he  had  unconsciously  been  de- 
cided all  along  to  do.  Yet  he  is  perfectly  honest  in 
believing  that  he  does  not  know  what  he  will  do.  You 
can  see  that  he  will  vote  the  ticket  straight;  he 
doesn't  see  it;  you  know  his  mind;  he  doesn't  know  it. 
The  other  argument  which  we  use  to  support  self- 
interest  in  the  name  of  self-culture  is  more  difficult 
to  state  and  to  meet.  It  states  that  if  I  proceed  on 
what  I  know  of  other  people's  minds  and  ideas  and 
purposes  I  am  likely  to  interpret  them  in  my  own  in- 
terests, and  thus  deceive  myself  into  believing  I  am 


302  THE  LIFE  OF  MIXD 

giving  due  consideration  to  the  other  fellow  when  as 
a  matter  of  fact  I  am  trying  to  take  advantage  of 
him.  We  can  meet  this  argument,  and  when  it  is 
met  the  argument  that  culture  is  a  matter  simply  of 
self-culture  is  destroyed.  It  leads  us  to  the  view  that 
all  culture  is  common,  which  we  discuss  later.  But 
we  can  go  on  here  with  another  phase  of  the  defense 
of  self-culture  which  is  perhaps  the  most  vicious  of  all 
the  attempts  we  ever  make  toward  self-deception. 

When  stated  in  the  simplest  form  this  argument 
runs  something  like  this:  Self-culture  is  the  primary 
object  of  the  mind-life,  but  in  order  to  achieve  the 
highest  forms  of  self-culture  I  must  devote  my  life  to 
the  service  of  others.  And  this  argument  is  presented 
by  those  who  count  themselves  individualists,  and  who 
thus  insist  that  one's  first  duty  is  to  one's  self: 

But  on  what  grounds  can  it  be  shown  that  the  other 
fellow's  interests  and  purposes  are  superior  and  more 
important  than  my  own?  And  suppose  they  are,  then 
how  do  they  become  obligations  for  me?  Suppose  they 
are  lower  than  mine,  then  must  I  devote  myself  to 
them?  How  can  I  be  under  obligations  to  purposes 
lower  than  I  must  judge  to  be  the  best?  Are  they 
higher  and  better  because  they  are  another's,  or  be- 
cause I  renounce  my  own  in  their  interest?  When  my 
purposes  and  those  of  another  person  differ,  whose 
are  right?  And  when  they  are  contradictory,  and  con- 
flict with  each  other  violently,  how  do  I  determine 
whose  purposes  are  most  worthy?  Similar  questions 
can  be  proposed  indefinitely,  showing  that  the  whole 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  303 

doctrine  of  service  to  others  is  a  mass  of  absurdities. 
It  is  contradictory  to  our  most  fundamental  concep- 
tions; nobody  believes  it,  for  we  do  not  and  cannot  in 
the  modern  world  think  of  anybody  serving  anybody. 
We  are  committed  to  the  principle  of  individual  free- 
dom, and  any  attempt  to  make  freedom  and  service 
to  anybody  consistent  with  each  other  ends  and  must 
end  in  the  shallowest  sophistry. 

Let  us  examine  what  this  means  in  the  simplest 
situation  we  can  find  in  the  facts  of  life  as  we  know 
them.  And  perhaps  such  a  situation  is  to  be  found  in 
the  so-called  "servant  problem.''  When  the  good 
housewife  is  ill  you  set  about  looking  for  a  ''woman" 
to  do  the  housework.  You  cannot  find  anybody 
among  your  friends  who  knows  of  a  decent,  self-re- 
specting, industrious,  honest  person  (and  you  do  not 
want  any  other  sort  of  person)  who  does  not  already 
have  arrangements  in  which  she  is  free  to  dispose  of 
her  time  and  energy  and  leisure  and  earnings  pretty 
much  as  she  pleases.  True,  in  the  job  at  the  factory 
or  office  she  is  held  rigidly  to  the  performance  of 
definite  tasks,  but  she  knew  exactly  what  these  tasks 
were  when  she  took  the  job,  and  she  is  as  free  as  the 
other  persons  with  whom  she  associates.  Besides, 
while  she  is  under  the  orders  of  some  manager,  yet 
the  orders  are  not  special  to  her  in  any  way,  and  they 
represent  an  agreement  under  which  her  rights  can  be 
protected  to  some  extent,  however  benevolently  irre- 
sponsible her  employer  is.  When  the  day's  work  is 
done  her  time  is  her  own,  and  she  can  do  what  she 


.*04  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

pleases  with  it  so  long  as  she  is  able  to  go  back  to 
work  the  next  day.  Now  suggest  to  such  a  person 
that  she  take  a  place  to  do  the  drudgery  of  house- 
work at  the  orders  of  a  sick  person's  whim,  tell  her 
to  look  after  children  who  know  that  she  has  no  au- 
thority over  them,  and  in  whom  she  has  no  interest, 
and  she  will,  as  you  would,  decline.  It  is  queer  that 
in  such  cases  our  best  friends  and  neighbors,  though 
all  Christians,  do  not  come  to  help  us  out:  they  will 
bring  a  dish  of  food  in  Haviland,  but  they  offer  us  no 
sustained  service,  as  the  theory  suggests  that  they 
should.  Service,  then,  in  the  simplest  and  most  prom- 
ising of  cases,  is  exactly  what  it  is,  service,  servitude, 
slavery:  and  nobody  wants  to  enter  into  such  rela- 
tions and  will  do  it  only  under  compulsion  of  some 
kind.  But  suppose  the  "woman"  would  be  much  bet- 
ter off  if  she  took  the  job;  better  wages,  better  home, 
better  food,  refined  surroundings,  real  respect,  every- 
thing, in  fact,  than  in  the  home  she  can  provide  for 
herself.  It  does  not  avail;  it  is  not  her  home,  her 
food,  etc.,  and  on  the  theory  of  self-culture  she  has  a 
right  to  demand  these  things  in  her  own  name  and  for 
herself.  The  "servant  problem"  in  a  civilized  world 
is  insoluble:  there  can  be  no  ultimate  good  in  a  world 
so  long  as  one  person  works  for,  and  on  the  order  of, 
and  in  the  interest  of,  another;  so  long  as  such  con- 
ditions obtain  in  the  practical  world  the  mind  is  the 
slave-mind  and  the  life  is  the  life  of  the  slave. 

Now  if  we  take  the  question  of  "self-culture  through 
service1'  in  its  higher  forms  in  social  and  religious  life. 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  305 

we  find  the  situation  even  infinitely  worse,  and  the 
arguments  employed  to  support  it  growing  weaker  and 
weaker  until  they  become  altogether  contemptible. 
This  would  be  natural;  if  service  is  servitude,  then  the 
"higher"  the  form  the  more  vicious  the  fact.  In  these 
connections  the  argument  gives  way  to  blatant  so- 
phistry. In  social  work  the  "uplifter"  who  takes  one 
unfortunate  after  another  and  tries  to  make  them 
over  according  to  the  notion  of  respectability  finds, 
when  capable  of  finding  anything,  that  all  her  efforts 
are  failing  under  her  very  eyes,  and  when  she  ex- 
amines them  she  sees  that  they  deserve  to  fail  and 
hence  could  not  possibly  succeed.  She  finds  that  the 
whole  uplift  point  of  view  rests  upon  the  theory  that 
states  of  mind  are  the  ultimate  reality,  and  that  the 
whole  scheme  of  relief  work  is  nothing  more  than  an 
attempt  to  induce  people  to  think  things  that  are  not 
real  and  to  believe  things  that  they  know  to  be  false. 
You  cannot  convince  a  person  that  goodness  is  real 
in  the  world  if  for  him  everything  in  the  world  is  bad; 
and  it  is  nonsense  to  try  to  tell  him  that  things  which 
he  knows  better  than  you  do  are  really  good  when  he 
knows  they  are  bad.  You  merely  convince  him  of 
the  falsity  and  unreality  of  everything,  including  your- 
self and  the  "work"  you  are  trying  to  do.  The  unfor- 
tunate person  knows  better  than  you  do  that  he  is  the 
victim  of  circumstances  over  which  he  has  no  control, 
and  which  cannot  be  controlled  by  good  will  even  in 
infinite  quantities;  and  it  makes  no  difference  what 
states  of  mind  he  has,  the  facts  remain  that   things 


306  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

are  bad.  And  it  makes  no  difference  even  if  it  is  true 
that  he  has  lost  his  self-respect,  that  if  he  had  his 
self-respect  things  would  be  better.  His  self-respect 
is  itself  one  of  the  things  over  which  he  has  no  con- 
trol, and  that  he  should  have  no  self-respect  may  have 
been  determined  by  the  conditions  under  which  not 
he,  but  his  grandfather  lived. 

So  the  theory  that  we  should  employ  our  lives  in 
the  service  of  others  is  nonsense  and  self-contradictory. 
It  persists  not,  as  generally  argued,  because  it  is  to 
the  interest  of  some  people  to  perpetuate  it,  for  the 
people  who  are  naturally  benefited  by  it  are  not  aware 
of  the  connection  which  the  superstition  has  with  their 
interests;  it  persists  simply  because  of  the  inertia  of 
the  mind,  the  fact  that  it  is  easier  to  go  on  accepting 
a  comforting  principle  though  wrong  than  to  work  out 
a  right  one.  It  is  complicated  by  the  fact  that  we 
are  half-conscious  of  its  falsity  and  fear  to  think  about 
it  lest  we  should  prove  it  false.  And  if  proved  false 
we  know  that  it  would  leave  our  practical  life  resting 
upon  unstable  foundations;  the  one  thing  we  must  be 
certain  about  is  the  certainty  of  our  moorings;  even 
though  that  certainty  is  purchased  by  the  refusal  to 
understand  the  grounds  of  sand  upon  which  our  life 
is  supposed  to  be  securely  erected. 

Once  more,  how  does  it  happen  that  other  people's 
purposes  are  nobler  and  worthier  than  my  own?  Why 
should  I  not  argue  that  the  other  fellow  should  spend 
his  life  in  my  service?  You  may  say  that  this  is  not 
what  the  principle  means,  but  what  I  am  arguing  is 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  307 

that  you  who  accept  it  do  not  know  what  it  means, 
and  that  no  reasonable  interpretation  can  possibly  be 
given  for  it.  It  is  a  tissue  of  falsehoods,  and  you  re- 
fuse to  think  about  it  because  you  are  half  aware  that 
it  will  not  stand  looking  into.  There  is  and  can  be 
no  obligation  for  anybody  to  serve  anybody.  Such  a 
principle  has  nothing  to  do  with  religion,  except  that 
any  genuine  religion  will  soundly  condemn  it,  and  it 
was  never  any  part  of  the  Christian  scheme.  It  is  an 
Oriental  product  of  personal  absolutism;  and  if  it  is 
taken  up  seriously  by  any  modern  cause  it  will  destroy 
that  cause.  The  "others"  philosophy  is  therefore  senti- 
mental nonsense  and  sophistry  and  buncombe.  There 
can  be  no  genuine  order  in  the  human  world  so  long 
as  one  man  works  for  another;  men  do  not  work  and 
strive  and  suffer  for  each  other;  that  could  never  be 
required  on  any  moral  ground;  so  far  as  they  do  it,  it 
is  wrong  and  they  are  ignorant  merely;  men  work  with 
each  other  for  common  ends;  and  in  the  moral  world 
there  is  no  boss.  We  shall  have  to  give  up  the  caste 
systems,  based  as  it  is  on  the  philosophy  of  others, 
otherwise  the  perpetuation  of  human  life  in  this  world 
will  be  out  of  the  question. 

Human  culture  does  not  then  rest  on  states  of  mind. 
In  so  far  as  we  hold  such  a  theory  the  states  of  mind 
referred  to  are  states  of  feeling  and  will.  In  the  ordi- 
nary conception  of  service,  for  instance,  one  type  of 
person  or  one  class  of  persons  are  supposed  to  possess 
their  souls  in  meekness,  humility,  self-forgetfulness, 
in  fact  to  cultivate  in  their  own  lives  mere  states  of 


.W8  THE  LIFE  OF  .MIND 

feeling  of  the  negative  sort,  and  do  what  they  are  told 
to  do.  The  other  class  is  supposed  to  cultivate  fatherly 
benevolence  and  charity  and  pity,  and  issue  orders. 
It  is  for  them  the  will  of  God  that  they  possess  the 
intelligence,  and  since  they  have  thereby  an  advantage 
their  only  obligation  is  to  feel  strongly  for  "others" 
welfare.  In.  their  life  therefore  benevolence  and  char- 
ity become  identified  with  states  of  will,  their  superior- 
ity comes  natively  out  of  their  own  unique  inherent 
worth,  and  they  assume  the  lordly  function  of  "run- 
ning" things  in  their  own  interest. 

Culture  is,  nevertheless,  self-culture;  but  it  must  in 
this  sense  be  defined  out  of  all  semblance  to  the  ordi- 
nary use  of  those  words.  Let  us  see  how  it  is  possible. 
We  may  state  that  the  difficulty  that  has  been  re- 
sponsible for  the  errors  recounted  above  is  this:  Our 
theories  and  our  practice  rest  upon  imperfect  knowl- 
edge of  what  sort  of  being  the  real  self  is.  The  self 
is  not  a  series  of  mental  states.  That  much  we  hope 
we  have  made  clear.  The  self  is  not  a  series  of  any- 
thing, not  a  string  of  things  placed  end-to-end.  Then 
what  else  is  there  that  it  can  be?  The  answer  is,  the 
only  thing  other  than  mental  states  that  can  be  real 
—that  is,  objects.  The  self  then  is  made  up  of  ob- 
jects; not  a  series  or  string  of  objects,  but  an  order, 
or  orderly  organization  of  objects. 

We  stated  above  that  the  order  of  the  subjective 
world  or  the  world  of  states  of  mind  was  an  order 
established  by  those  mental  functions  we  call  feeling 
and  will.     We  stated  at  the  same  time  that  the  ob- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  309 

jective  world  or  the  world  of  permanently  stable 
things  is  one  established  under  the  influence  of  the 
perceptive-cognitive  functions  of  mind.  We  have  to 
show  now  that  this  objective  world  of  fact-things  is  an 
important  factor  in  human  culture,  and  that  it  is  the 
basis  of  culture  even  when  we  are  insisting  that  cul- 
ture is  essentially  self-culture.  That  is,  the  world  of 
things  is  the  basis  of  the  nature  of  the  self.  This  world 
of  things  is  peculiarly  the  world  of  knowledge,  hence 
the  most  necessary  thing  for  us  to  understand  here  is 
the  science  by  which  the  world  of  things  is  reduced 
to  the  system  of  knowledge.  Our  problem  is  to  show 
the  dependence  of  culture  upon  logic  and  its  world  of 
permanent  things.  For  it  is  upon  the  permanence  of 
things  that  the  persistence  of  values — and  values  are 
the  content  of  culture — depends. 

The  fundamental  difficulty  of  the  point  of  view 
which  makes  culture  rest  upon  feeling  and  will  is  that 
our  feelings  and  will  are  just  as  likely  to  attract  us 
to  one  type  of  object  as  to  another.  It  is  a  perfectly 
simple  matter  to  develop  feelings  about  an  object  that 
is  essentially  repulsive  and  hideous  so  that  we  shall  be 
led  to  accept  the  object  as  worthy.  Again,  our  will 
attitudes  do  not  distinguish  one  object  from  another, 
and  we  are  as  likely  to  make  an  essentially  objection- 
able object  the  instrument  of  our  will  as  we  are  to 
express  our  will  through  objects  that  are  worthy  in 
every  way.  It  is  this  latter  fact  that  often  leads  a  per- 
son otherwise  respectable  to  associate  with  low  peo- 
ple.    He  can   use   these   people  as   agencies   through 


MO  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

which  he  can  effect  his  purposes,  or,  it  may  be,  as  in 
the  case  of  certain  types  of  reformers,  can  use  them 
as  agencies  to  the  attainment  of  perfectly  disinter- 
ested and  worthy  ends.  But  the  individual  who  works 
with  low  people,  regardless  of  the  nature  of  the  ends 
he  proposes  to  achieve,  will  find  himself  adopting  low 
habits  and  low  ideas,  and  before  he  is  aware  of  what 
is  taking  place  has  become  transformed  into  a  low 
character  himself.  It  is  then  immaterial  to  mere  will 
what  kinds  of  objects  it  chooses  through  which  to  ex- 
press itself;  as  in  the  case  of  the  soldier,  who  makes 
so  much  the  better  soldier  the  less  definitely  his  will 
settles  upon  worth-while  things.  Rather,  it  should  b? 
said,  will  tends  to  take  advantage,  just  as  feeling 
does,  of  whatever  object  is  at  hand,  and  will  express 
itself  through  good  or  bad  objects  indifferently.  This 
point  cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  upon,  for  it  is  a 
common  assumption  that  culture,  in  its  more  delicate 
and  humane  aspects,  is  a  matter  of  feeling,  and  in  its 
more  vigorous  aspects  a  function  of  the  strenuous  will 
which  puts  things  through  to  accomplishment.  Cul- 
ture is  essentially  neither  of  these,  and  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  show  by  illustrations  how  and  why  this  is  so. 
Let  us  take  first  an  instance  of  the  fact  that  feeling 
is  indifferent  as  to  its  object.  Later  we  shall  want  to 
show,  what  seems  absurd  on  the  face  of  it,  that,  even 
in  the  higher  realms  of  art,  still  feeling  is  indifferent 
as  to  the  object  through  which  it  is  expressed.  It  is 
of  course  true  that  the  object  must  have  the  quality 
or  attribute  appropriate  to  the  expression  of  the  feel- 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  311 

ing,  as  e.  g.,  a  statue  must  be  made  of  hard  material, 
but  this  attribute  is  not  determined  upon  by  the  feel- 
ing, but  is  a  result  of  cognition  and  choice.  We  may 
then  take  an  instance  from  one  of  the  higher  and  more 
noble  spheres  of  feeling,  namely,  religion.  It  sounds 
a  little  harsh  to  say  that  religion  is  indifferent  as  to 
its  object,  the  object  through  which  it  is  to  find  ex- 
pression, or  is  not  deeply  concerned  as  to  the  appro- 
priateness of  its  object.  But  the  Jesuitical  principle 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means  seems  to  indicate  just 
that.  But  if  it  is  argued  that  this  is  a  historic  anom- 
aly, the  reply  is  that  the  fact  is  universal,  and  the 
anomolous  thing  is  merely  that  the  point  of  view  was 
di  iiherately  adopted.  Often  the  same  attitude  is  not 
only  not  deliberate,  but  is  unconscious,  as,  e.  g.,  it  is 
probably  true  that  not  one  minister  in  twenty  is  aware 
of  any  possible  objection  to  having  the  previous  Sun- 
day's receipts  displayed  on  the  blackboard  in  the  teeth 
of  the  congregation. 

The  minister  himself  will  go  through  the  Eu- 
charistic  rite  while  it  is  in  the  hands  of  a  deacon  whom 
he  knows  to  be  a  crook,  the  assumption  being  ap- 
parently that  the  full  realization  of  the  meaning  of 
the  rite  will  cause  its  devotee  to  overlook  the  crook 
through  which  the  meaning  is  mediated.  That  is,  it 
seems  to  make  no  difference  how  you  get  the  feeling- 
value  of  the  rite,  the  important  thing  is  that  you  get 
it;  and  if  it  happens  to  come  to  you  via  the  crook, 
then  bless  the  Lord  for  such  a  crook.  In  evangelistic 
zeal  it  has  hardlv  ever  been  the  rule  that  you  should 


312  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

look  to  the  character  of  the  people  you  bring  into  the 
fold,  for.  once  in  the  fold,  the  essential  baseness  of 
the  sexual  debauchee  or  the  habitual  skinflint  or  liar 
can  be  made  to  shine  with  the  clear  light  of  truth  and 
godliness.  In  the  more  delicate  question  of  the  choice 
of  material  symbols,  religion  has  been  happier  as  a 
rule,  and  the  symbolism  of  religion  has  perhaps  kept 
both  truth  and  beauty  alive  through  many  an  age 
when  they  could  not  have  been  self-supporting  even 
as  mature.  And  as  the  fond  but  mistaken  mother  who 
gave  up  her  own  life  to  protect  through  infancy  and 
childhood  the  beauty  and  truth  which  makes  the  one 
little  bright  spot  in  a  world  of  gloom,  religious  sym- 
bolism still  commands  the  bowed  head.  And  if  she 
has  not  always  been  able  to  prevent  the  big  brother 
truth  from  boxing  little  sister's  ears,  she  has  also  not 
prevented  little  sister,  in  the  glee  of  innocent  grace, 
from  kicking  brother's  card  house  by  times  off  its 
foundation  into  kingdom  come.  There  are,  however, 
instances  in  the  symbolism  where  the  choice  of  ob- 
jects has  been  brutal.  To  one  who  has  climbed  head 
first  down  into  a  well  at  the  risk  of  his  life  to  pull  out 
a  lamb  which  in  its  playfulness  jumped  over  the  curb, 
the  suggestion  that  its  blood  might  be  appropriately 
used  to  wash  away  the  sins  of  the  rescuer  does  not 
seem  peculiarly  apropos. 

It  is  equally  simple  to  show  that  the  will  attitude  is 
indifferent  as  to  its  object  also.  The  famous  sayings 
of  great  generals  carry  the  point  well  enough.  ''Either 
1  will  find  a  way  or  I  will  make  one,"  ''Fight  it  out 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  313 

on  this  line  if  it  takes  all  summer,"  these  are  the 
words  of  utter  irresponsibility;  will  expresses  itself; 
that  is  its  function;  that  it  expresses  itself  through 
starving  children  or  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  inno- 
cent people  makes  no  difference  whatever.  But  since 
will  in  this  aspect  is  irresponsible,  it  is  not  arguable, 
so  there  is  no  argument  to  meet. 

Xow,  to  come  back  to  our  argument,  culture  is  a 
matter  essentially  of  objects.  The  degree  of  culture 
depends  upon  the  nature  and  quality  of  the  objects  it 
represents.  Then  the  essential  question  of  culture  is 
what  objects  furnish  the  proper  subjects  for  the  high- 
est possible  culture?  The  job  of  determining  the  ap-1 
propriateness  of  objects  to  practical  ends  is  peculiarly 
the  problem  of  the  cognitive  life,  the  knowledge  func- 
tion, as  it  expresses  itself  in  orderly  ways  in  science. 
Science,  then,  and  its  fundamental  object-types,  are 
the  basis  of  culture;  and  since  all  culture  is  self-cul- 
ture, our  problem  as  interested  in  the  practical  char- 
acter is  to  determine  the  relation  that  scientific  ob- 
jects hold  to  the  personality. 

One  point  we  want  to  make  clear  in  advance.  It 
concerns  a  certain  ambiguity  in  the  word  object.  We 
speak  of  our  objects  when  we  have  in  mind  the  things 
we  want  some  day  to  see  done  and  made  effective  in 
the  life  of  men.  And  such  a  question  as  "What  ob- 
ject does  he  have  in  view"?  is  intended  to  ask  about 
the  kind  of  a  world  the  individual's  thought  and  activi- 
ties tend  to  create.  It  may  be  that  his  object  is  fame 
or  riches  or  what  not.     But  in  any  case,  whatever  is 


314  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

the  answer  to  the  question,  it  indicates  a  kind  of  world, 
the  kind  of  world  that  the  individual  inquired  of  has 
characteristically  in  mind  as  the  medium  and  condi- 
tion of  his  life  of  action.  In  this  sense,  "object"  is 
equivalent  to  purpose,  and  although  we  often,  perhaps 
generally,  think  of  purpose  in  subjective  terms  as  if 
our  purposes  meant  merely  the  ways  we  have  of  feel- 
ing about  things,  we  really  know  when  we  come  down 
to  it  that  purposes  are  always  combinations  of  systems 
of  objects.  This  we  know  because  when  we  reflect  we 
see  that  purposes  are  essentially  objective  because 
they  can  be  held  in  common  by  many  people,  while 
states  of  mind  cannot  be  shared.  The  word  object 
then  means  purpose,  a  system  of  objects  which  shows 
the  effects  of  elements  of  order  which  have  been  put 
into  it  by  thought  and  action.  If  my  object  is  a  home, 
it  means  bricks  and  stones  and  lumber  and  concrete, 
ordered  into  form  by  thought  and  action,  and  as  I 
see  the  house  now  in  my  mind  there  is  not  only  the 
forms  and  colors  of  materials  in  my  mind,  but  I  am 
also  conscious  of  raising  the  bricks  up  on  the  wall  or 
of  sitting  on  the  porch.  It  is  in  this  way  that  sub- 
jective elements  become  parts  of  objects. 

The  other  meaning  of  object  is  really  only  slightly 
different  from  object  as  purpose.  In  fact  it  may  very 
well  be  described  as  a  stage  of  purpose.  In  ordinary 
terms,  it  means-  the  reference  to,  the  mere  indication 
of,  some  thing  which  so  far  has  no  particular  qualities 
to  identify  it,  but  as  merely  recognized  from  its  rela- 
tion to  the  activity  of  one's  mind.    That  is,  it  is  what 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  315 

simply  and  merely  lies  out  there,  separate  and  apart 
from  what  I  feel  in  my  own  consciousness.  It  is  in 
this  sense  that  we  say  an  object  lies  at  the  roadside, 
or  that  an  object  moves  over  the  hill.  In  such  a  case 
we  say,  "a  stone  or  something,"  or  a  "horse  or  some- 
thing," indicating  that  so  far  as  our  interest  and  in- 
formation go,  the  object  in  the  one  case  is  mere  bulk 
and  position,  and  in  the  other  perhaps  mere  indefinite 
color  and  movement.  The  essential  element  of  the  ob- 
ject in  this  case  is  its  outsideness.  Yet  it  is  probable 
that  the  aspect  of  outsideness  would  not  be  there  if 
it  were  not  for  some  rudimentary  glimpses  we  have 
of  the  object  as  being  used  or  put  into  some  kind  of 
order  that  depends  upon  the  purposes  of  our  practical 
life. 

Our  point  now  is,  that  these  objects,  as  the  materials 
of  science,  are  also  the  determinants  of  the  degree, 
nature,  and  quality,  of  culture,  not  only  in  general 
and  for  the  race,  but  also  for  the  culture  of  the  indi- 
vidual which  we  call  self-culture. 

We  have  said  that  our  two  classes  of  objects  were 
not  really  different  kinds.  The  object  which  is  merely 
"out  there"  becomes,  the  moment  we  turn  our  atten- 
tion to  it,  a  thing  which  is  no  longer  a  mere  "some- 
thing," but  one  which  we  are  aware  we  can  use  in 
some  way,  one  we  can  incorporate  and  embody  in  our 
life  and  its  purposes.  What  really  distinguishes  it  is 
the  degree  to  which  we  do  incorporate  it  or  absorb  it 
within  our  living  purposes.  Some  of  these  objects 
we  merely  erect  into  more  or  less  abstract  structures 


316  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

on  the  basis  of  their  vaguer  qualities,  and  we  call 
these  structures  systems  of  knowledge.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  these  systems  the  objects  are  indifferent 
to  our  more  active  purposes,  but  they  are  perfected 
as  objects  for  us  by  their  having  been  given  a  place 
in  the  knowledge  structure.  We  say  we  are  through 
with  them  when  we  "know"  them,  or  that  our  inter- 
est in  them  is  merely  theoretical.  But  the  interest 
may  become  at  any  moment  active,  and  I  be  led  to 
ask  myself  into  which  of  the  systems  I  intend  to  build 
this  particular  object  will  fit  as  a  constituent  part. 
These  objects,  then,  in  this  abstract  sense,  or  as  be- 
ing determined  in  their  importance  by  the  place  they 
occupy  in  the  classificatory  system  in  my  mind,  are 
the  objects  of  "science."  More  strictly  these  objects 
are  the  stuff  of  theoretical  or  pure  science,  of  the  sci- 
ence which  has  no  purpose  further  than  the  acquisi- 
tion of  knowledge,  what  we  ordinarily  call  natural 
science. 

But  when  objects  are  constructed  into  a  more  ab- 
stract system,  as  they  are  by  science  pretty  much  as 
bricks  are  laid  out  on  the  ground  in  more  or  less  regu- 
lar piles,  they  are,  like  the  piles  of  bricks,  found  to  be 
further  useful  just  because  they  are  neatly  piled  and 
arranged.  That  is,  a  brick  that  would  be  just  so  much 
space  with  so  much  dull  murky  color  as  it  lies  on  the 
ground  alone,  would  be  and  does,  when  piled  with 
others  in  a  neat  arrangement,  become  the  suggestion 
of  a  house  just  because  it  is  piled  up.  Then  the  bricks 
as  mere  "outside"  objects  become  the  house  as  a  high 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIXD  317 

and  complicated  purpose.  So  the  scientific  knowledge 
becomes  the  basis  and  suggestion  of  their  practical 
conversion  into  purposes.  Now  when  we  tend  to  neg- 
lect or  forget  the  lowly  origin  of  these  objects  in  our 
sense  contacts  and  to  reconstruct  them  along  the  lines 
of  purpose  these  objects  become  values.  And  as  we 
work  these  values  into  systems  in  the  elaborate  edi- 
fices of  politics,  government,  education,  recreation, 
etc.,  we  say  we  are  dealing  with  objects  as  human  or 
universal  purposes,  and  we  give  to  the  systems  of 
these  the  names  of  normative  sciences.  This  only 
means  that  our  objects  have  by  familiarity  become 
such  as  will  serve  as  types  or  standards,  and  we  use 
them  now  as  representative  of  objects  which  intention 
reserves  for  the  future  to  convert  through  thought  and 
action  into  the  instruments  and  content  of  culture. 

Thus  these  objects,  which  began  by  being  vague 
outside  meaningless  masses,  get  worked  into  the  very 
tissue  of  thought  and  feeling,  so  intimately  connected 
with  mind,  in  fact,  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  com- 
pletely to  distinguish  "mind"  from  its  "object."  This 
intimacy  grows  so  close  in  many  cases,  and  it  is  espe- 
cially true  of  the  immediate  objects  of  culture,  that 
the  very  best  you  can  do  when  you  want  to  describe 
the  essence  of  mind  is  to  describe  it  in  terms  of  a  cer- 
tain order  of  objects.  That  is,  the  mind,  as  the  basis 
of  the  personality  or  the  self,  is  literally  made  up  of 
objects  ordered  in  peculiar  ways,  so  that  we  can  now 
repeat  without  fear  of  ridicule  the  proposition  that  cul- 
ture is  essentially  a  matter  of  objects  and  not  of  states 


318  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

of  mind,  and  that  culture  is  self-culture  and  the  func- 
tion of  the  personality.  And  we  can  do  so  now  because 
the  self  or  personality  is  itself  made  up  of  systems  of 
objects  ordered  in  definite  and  peculiar  ways. 

Then  the  life  of  culture,  even  the  life  of  self-culture, 
is  a  matter  of  the  most  significant  handling  and  ar- 
rangement of  objects  that  intelligence  can  make  pos- 
sible. It  is  a  question  as  to  how  objects  as  goods  in 
this  world  are  disposed.  It  is  a  question  of  property. 
Not,  however,  one  of  how  property  is  disposed  of,  it  is 
not,  God  knows,  a  '^business  proposition,"  but  one  of 
how  property  is  disposed  as  the  instrument  of  use  and 
enjoyment. 

The  close  relation  between  culture  and  property  has 
always  been  recognized;  but  unfortunately  what  has 
often  been  noticed  is  the  mere  closeness  of  the  rela- 
tion, so  that  the  question  of  the  exact  nature  of  the 
relation  has  seldom  been  approached.  And  yet  noth- 
ing can  be  more  important  in  human  life.  We  can 
give  here  only  the  barest  outlines  of  the  relation,  and 
this  is  perhaps  best  done  through  two  or  three  illustra- 
tions. 

Life  itself  is  a  system  of  objects.  Its  dissolution  as 
an  individuality  means  merely  the  unloosing  of  the 
bonds  that  hold  the  objects  together.  Unfortunately 
we  take  such  statements  too  literally.  Life  is  a  sys- 
tem not  of  natural,  but  of  cultural  objects.  Its  dis- 
solution is  the  withdrawal  from  fragmentary  private 
incentric  organization  and  the  throwing  the  objects 
of  which  it  is  composed  back  into  the  public  body  as 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  319 

a  higher  individuality.  There  is  thus  no  death  or  dis- 
solution of  the  cultural  body  or  of  the  life  that  it  em- 
bodies. But  it  must  be  understood  that  all  cultural 
objects  are  natural  objects  as  those  objects  are  or- 
dered with  respect  to  the  higher  types  of  purposes. 
Life,  then,  is  property,  and  property  is  the  circulatory 
or  distributive  function  of  life. 

Then  our  problem  is  to  describe  property  in  its  dis- 
tributive function  as  the  cultural  object,  and  to  point 
out  the  consequences  of  its  perversion  as  such. 

By  property  as  the  cultural  object  we  mean  the  or- 
dered system  of  means  through  which  the  cultural  life 
expresses  itself  in  the  process  of  achieving  ends.  And 
as  indispensable  means  it  is  the  condition  of  there  be- 
ing a  cultural  life  at  all.  The  significance  of  the  life 
to  which  it  gives  form  depends  upon  the  real  perma- 
nence and  stability  of  the  objective  forms  which  it 
takes;  and  the  degree  of  life  significance  depends 
upon  the  degree  of  adequacy  with  which  the  object- 
means  is  appropriated  to  the  life-ends.  Since  there  is 
no  inevitable  destiny  which  determines  that  its  forms 
shall  be  uniformly  high,  the  probability  that  there 
shall  be  high  forms  of  property  is  the  task  of  intelli- 
gence. Heretofore  the  form  which  the  property  life 
should  take  has  been  left  to  feeling-will ;  with  the  con- 
sequence that,  since  the  feeling-will  is  indifferent  as 
to  its  objects,  the  property  object  has  taken  uniformly 
low  forms  as  determined  by  utility  in  the  sphere  of 
physical  necessity.  And  the  mind  life  that  has  been 
embodied  in  this  low  object  form  has  been  the  irra- 


J20  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

tional  feeling-will  life  of  indiscriminate  choice  of  ob- 
jects which,  since  they  represent  no  principle  of  or- 
ganization, has  left  life  a  chaos  of  strife  and  dis- 
persive dissimulation.  In  the  interest  of  the  cultural 
life,  then,  what  is  to  be  ordered  is  the  indiscriminate 
and  endless  mass  of  negatively  determined  property- 
objects,  which,  as  such,  are  indifferent  as  to  their 
permanent  form,  and  the  form  of  the  organization  is 
indicated  by  the  principle  of  life  as  a  whole. 

But  this  means  that  the  system  of  property-objects, 
as  indifferent  to  their  type  of  order  or  form,  should 
be  the  exhaustless  opportunity  of  free  choice  of  means 
to  the  good  life  as  determined  by  intelligence  and  not 
by  the  accident-impulse  of  feeling-will.  Or,  literally, 
it  means  that  each  active  life-center  should  have  un- 
failing access  to  the  material  in  and  through  which  it 
may  give  itself  permanent  and  stable  form.  The  de- 
mand that  it  have  the  means  to  permanent  and  stable 
form  is  conditioned  upon  the  requirement  of  continu- 
ity in  the  whole-good.  That  is,  the  ultimate  dependa- 
bility of  the  whole-good,  which  is  the  source  from 
which  the  life  center  draws  both  material  and  inspira- 
tion, itself  reciprocally  depends  upon  the  contribution 
to  it  of  the  end-product  of  the  individual  life.  This 
mutuality  of  dependence  is  the  ground  of  continuity 
between  the  individual  life-form  and  the  species-whole, 
and  this  ground  is  laid  solid  and  substantial  in  the 
system  of  property  objects. 

So  much  for  the  abstract  statement.  What  it  means 
to  any  individual  is  something  like  this.     Heretofore 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  321 

the  individual  has  been  left  in  "free"  feeling- will  com- 
petition with  not  only  other  individuals  on  terms  of 
more  or  less  effective  equality,  an  equality,  however, 
based  upon  the  negative  indiscriminability  of  two 
zeros;  but  he  has  been  also  left  to  compete,  under 
terms  which  bear  no  relation  to  his  freedom,  with 
superindividuals  who  enter  the  game  with  the  cards 
stacked  in  their  favor.  Without  going  into  the  causes 
which  produced  this  situation,  which  are  relatively 
simple  historical  matters  which  any  one  may  find  if 
he  wishes,  the  fact  is  that  the  individual  finds  the 
means  to  the  embodiment  of  his  purposes  withheld 
from  him  by  the  superindividual  (who,  let  us  say,  is 
the  symbol  of  the  private-property  system).  But  the 
individual  is  not  conscious  of  any  reason  why  he 
should  be  balked,  nor  is  it  possible  to  give  any  rea- 
son which  intelligence  is  bound  to  respect.  So  a  life 
of  cultural  accomplishment  is  denied  to  the  individual 
because  the  means  thereto  are  withheld  from  him  by 
persons  who  not  only  do  not  make  any  use  of  them, 
but  literally  destroy  them  or  pervert  them  to  the  uses 
of  vice  and  lust.  So  one  man  is  jree  to  be  wicked; 
the  other  is  not  jree  to  be  good.  But  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  anybody's  wicked  "will."  It  is  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  culture  objects  and  their  organization,  left  to 
the  chance  aggregations  effected  by  feeling-will  op- 
erating as  accident,  and  having  become  so  confused 
that  they  are  free  and  available  for  nobody's  use. 

It  is  the  practical  task  of  intelligence  to  free  the 
matted  and  clotted  mass  of  means-objects  and  to  make 


322  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

of  them  the  uniform  opportunity  to  good  for  all  men. 

But  intelligence  as  it  operates  as  the  pure  cognitive 
function  in  the  interest  of  constructing  abstract  sys- 
tems cannot  incorporate  objects  as  values  into  stable 
wholes.  And  property-objects  as  means  to  life  are 
values.  We  saw  that  just  as  the  feeling-will  can 
under  no  circumstances  by  itself  create  order  among 
objects,  so  the  perceptive-cognition  cannot  of  itself 
order  objects  as  values.  But,  just  as  no  order  was 
possible  among  objects  until  distinction  had  done  the 
work  of  analysis,  which  was  accomplished  by  feeling- 
will;  so  no  order  of  values  is  possible  until  after  cog- 
nition has  drawn  the  abstract  forms  of  values  in  ob- 
jects considered  as  types.  Thus,  feeling-will  gives 
raw  particularity;  while  perceptive-cognition  con- 
tributes abstract  universality.  It  is  thus  left  for  emo- 
tive-imagination to  reconstruct  value-objects  into  con- 
crete individualities. 

The  full  explanation  of  this  process  would  require 
a  volume  by  itself.  Here  we  can  only  say  what  would 
be  introductory  to  such  a  work.  The  work  of  emotion 
(Ch.  V)  and  that  of  imagination  (Chs.  XVII  to 
XXII)  have  been  described  separately.  Now  we  must 
show  the  effects  of  their  combined  influence  as  it  op- 
erates upon  objects  after  they  have  been  reflectively 
ordered  by  cognitive  intelligence.  These  objects  as 
we  have  noticed  are  the  results  of  the  work  of  science. 
They  represent  truth;  they  are  true  realities.  But 
they  are  indifierently  true,  and  their  truth  as  yet  lacks 
significance.    It  is  a  tautology  to  say  that  they  possess 


THE  LIFE  OF  MIND  323 

cognitive  or  knowledge  or  scientific  significance;  these 
uses  imply  value,  it  is  true;  but  they  imply  technical 
or  hypothetical  value,  that  is,  they  have  value  for 
something  beyond  themselves,  or  their  value  is  bound 
up  in  their  continuity  with  other  things.  What  we 
require  here  is  jree  value,  significance  which  rests  in 
its  own  completeness  and  does  not  refer  for  its  ful- 
fillment to  something  beyond.  This  free  value  the 
cognitive  intelligence  cannot  reach;  even  truth  as  a 
value  is  not  attained  by  the  sheer  intelligence,  but 
comes  through  the  tempering  enrichment  which  the 
intelligence  in  its  speculative  use  derives  from  the 
imagination.  There  we  have  the  idea  and  at  the  same 
time  the  objective  reality  of  a  value  when  the  latter 
feature  is  drawn  by  the  cognitive  intelligence  and  the 
former  breathed  in  by  the  imagination,  both  functions 
operating  independently  of  conditions  as  the  specula- 
tive capacity.  Operating  thus  as  a  unitary  speculative 
capacity  with  the  dual  function  of  formulating  the 
object  as  permanent  stability,  and  at  the  same  time 
of  infusing  the  object  with  not  only  effective  but 
effected  continuity,  mind  reaches  its  highest  form  in 
its  sufficient  self-creation  and  objectification. 

This  final  result  the  mind-life  attains  only  in  art. 
Or,  it  has  up  to  now  only  attained  self-perfection  in 
art.  Is  it  likely  that  in  other  interests  a  similar  per- 
fection will  ever  be  possible?  One  shudders  at  the 
question.  For,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  irrational 
element  of  feeling-will  strikes  through  our  practical 
life-forms  as  the  sharp  sword  which  never  misses  a 


324  THE  LIFE  OF  MIND 

vital  point.  Religion,  government,  education,  moral- 
ity, all  our  major  interests  seem  infected  with  the 
dread  canker  of  irrational  feeling-will;  and  there  ap- 
pears as  yet  no  prophet  who  can  exorcise  the  demon. 
It  may  to  the  temperamentally  optimistic  appear 
hopeful  that  the  disease  is  diagnosed,  even  though  as 
yet  the  physician  who  makes  the  diagnosis  is  put  to 
death  by  violence  and  in  shame.  There  is  no  possi- 
bility of  doubt  that  tne  seat  of  the  difficulty  lies  in 
the  segregation  and  withdrawal  of  large  masses  of 
property  objects  from  their  active  function  in  the 
body- whole  of  the  mind-life.  It  is  as  if  a  cancer  be- 
gins in  a  harmless  irritation  of  a  local  structure  and 
gradually  involves  all  the  adjacent  structures  in  de- 
cay and  dysfunction;  just  as  the  caterpillar  starts  on 
one  leaf  and  gradually  draws  the  whole  life  form  of 
the  plant  into  its  deadly  web.  The  aggregation  of 
property  objects  into  large  functional  units  is  prob- 
ably a  necessity  of  the  mode  of  organization  of  human 
practical  affairs;  but  the  segregation  of  these  aggre- 
gates and  setting  them  and  their  purposes  against  the 
life  whole  in  the  institution  of  private  ownership  is 
the  disease  that  will  destroy  civilization. 

The  question  of  the  persistence  of  culture  seems 
hopeless,  then,  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  inter- 
ests. And  interest  has  taken  complete  charge  of  hu- 
man affairs.  Only  those  apparently  bodiless  purposes 
such  as  are  represented  in  art  seem  to  escape  the 
withering  blighting  grasp  of  interest.  How  long  will 
the  real  arts  hold  out? 


V 


